“Yeah. Yeah. I’m here,” he’d answered. “I’m just trying to square the pragmatic woman I’ve met with someone whose parents were murdered.”
“Well, there’s more,” Tex had warned.
He hadn’t been sure he’d wanted to hear it.
“Important stuff, or things I don’t really need to know?” he’d asked.
Tex’s response had been immediate. “I’m afraid you should hear this, too.”
Dammit.His gut had rebelled. If Tex thought something was important, it sure as shit would be.
Julian had braced himself. “Go ahead.”
“Jefferson, the middle brother, was released from jail eight months ago. His parole officer lost touch with him about five weeks back. I hacked the officer’s records, and the guy, who is also a trained therapist, is worried. It seems Jefferson is still displaying a lot of anger issues, and they’d just started addressing them when Jefferson disappeared.”
Julian had hissed, thinking immediately of Petula’s safety. “Fuck. That’s not good.”
Julian’s mind swirled as he currently stared at the ceiling.
If this brother had gone off the rails enough to kill their parents, was he still holding some kind of a grudge against the rest of the family? It didn’t seem likely that Petula would be a target, since she’d only been six when the murder had happened, but Statler could be in trouble. The man needed to be warned if he hadn’t already been apprised of his brother’s vanishing act.
Julian had made one request of Tex. “Do you have a recent picture of Jefferson you can send me?”
“I can get one,” Tex had responded. “Which of your email addresses do you want me to use? I’ll send it along.”
Of course, Tex would know Julian’s contact info. Julian had rattled off the one he used the most.
Julian almost hadn’t wanted to know anything else before ending the conversation, but he’d felt compelled ask. “Is there, uh, more I should be aware of?”
“Maybe,” Tex had added cautiously. “I’ll give you the rest in a nutshell.”
Julian had braced himself.
“The minute Statler turned eighteen, he joined the Army.”
“Petula told me that.” Julian had figured that was no big deal.
He hadn’t had time to relax with that thought, though.
“Did she also tell you that the minutesheturned eighteen, her brother separated from the service and they rented a place together?”
“Ah, no,” Julian had responded. It hadn’t sounded unreasonable if the siblings were close. “She did mention that they live together. But is that pertinent to anything?”
“Yeah.” Tex hadn’t minced words. “It took some digging into DHHS records, but there was a reason Statler joined her as a civilian. There were allegations of Petula’s abuse at the hands of her adopting family.”
“What?” Julian’s back had instantly been up.
“Nothing that was ever substantiated in what I’ve seen from DES,” Tex had interjected hurriedly. “But it looks like Statler, while serving, had made numerous calls over the years to the agency, demanding they investigate things he heard from his sister.”
“And?” Julian had been trying hard not to see red, but it had been a losing battle.
“The visits the social workers made uncovered nothing. And on top of that, there were no Emergency Room trips, or anything else that would substantiate Statler’s claims, so it was all brushed aside.”
“Damn,” Julian had sworn. “Petula doesn’t seem the type to have made shit up, Tex,” he’d rebutted. “She’s got a very level head on her shoulders.”
That much had been obvious to Julian, even from the small amount of time he’d spent with her.
“I don’t know how to dissect that, Julian. I’m just passing along what I’ve found so far. But I tell you what Iamgoing to do. I’m going to make a deep dive into the adopting family to see if I can uncover the rest of the story…because my gut says there’s a lot more. If that’s okay with you?”
