Blackstone: Dahlia: Blackstone

1

I was five when my father killed my mother in cold blood.

I’ll never forget that day. Even now, more than thirty years later, I can still hear the boom so loud in our quiet, little house. I was in my room with all my crayons and plain paper spread across the desk, creating some world tucked deep in my imagination. The report shook me, froze me in place to listen. Waiting for what came next.

Nothing but unrelieved silence rang in my ears.

Fear crawled up my throat as if I knew the magnitude of that sound. As if I could feel the cleaving of my life into before and after.

The need to run and hide pushed me from the chair. My room was devoid of any good places to hide. Even at such a young age, I rejected shoving myself under the bed. I’d played hide and seek too many times to make that mistake when it really counted.

I stepped to the door and opened it. Looking down the hallway. I could hear someone crying. Not my mother’s voice. I’d heard her cry too many times over the past year to know the difference. This was lower, guttural.

I tip-toed across the hall to my mother’s bedroom and went to the closet. The space wasn’t big enough to walk in, but spacious enough to hold an entire set of luggage. I slid the door open then slipped inside, closing the door as quietly as possible. There was only enough room to squeeze myself between the wall behind the largest of the cases. I kept going until both that and my mother’s winter coats hid me from anyone opening the door.

I sat there and waited, listening as the sobs turned to shouts. Words I’d never heard before were yelled as my father started going room to room, searching. I supposed he looked for me.

Dahlia! Dahlia! Where are you, baby girl?

The heat and fear made me sweat. I shook and rocked myself for comfort. Told myself stories to pass the time. And waited.

Even as I sat in the dark, hating myself for not being braver, for not going out to the living room to check on my mother, I heard her voice in my head. If there comes a time when I can’t protect you, hide.

By sitting in the back of her closet, I was doing as I was told. I was being the good girl she always told me I was.

Still, even at my tender age, guilt ate at me.

Time moved so slowly, and I must have fallen asleep. The next thing I remember, I woke up to voices outside the door. More than one. Low. I couldn’t tell what they were saying.

Then the closet door opened. I held my arms around my legs and put my head down. I closed my eyes against the light pouring into the dark space. If I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me.

I wished them away, but they didn’t go.

Cal, she’s in here, one of the voices said. Clothes hangers made a screech across the metal rod as they were moved to reveal my hiding place.

Someone big and wearing a uniform reached in for me, and I started to scream.

I couldn’t stop myself. I just let go with all the fear and guilt that I’d kept bottled up. I screamed until my throat hurt and ears burned.

Then strong arms held me tight against a wide chest and I was carried outside to a night filled with flashing lights.

Darkness had fallen and all the neighbors were outside, standing behind yellow tape, staring at me. Surrounded by strangers, I panicked.

Mommy! Mommy!

At that point, I didn’t know she was dead, only that something horrible had happened and my hiding place was discovered. She would be so angry at me for not hiding well enough.

A lady with yellow hair pulled back into a ponytail took me from the man who had brought me outside.

Living in a material world…

She held me close and danced around singing a song into my ear that only I could hear. Her hair smelled like my mother’s and the scent calmed me down to where I was no longer screaming, but the tears kept coming.

Finally, she sat me down in the back of an ambulance and looked me over. She was one of the paramedics called to the house.

Do you have any brothers or sisters? She lifted my arms out to the side and looked me up and down.

I shook my head because at the time, the only word I remembered was ‘mommy.’

They took me to the hospital where I was checked out by more strangers. Then the man who had carried me outside came to see me.

He handed me a teddy bear that had been on my bed and took a seat beside me. My name is Cal. Cal Sharpe.

I only stared at him. He was a big man. Not fat, but big and like a teddy bear himself. His eyes were large, brown, and kind. Not at all like my father’s blue ones.

I know you’re very scared right now and don’t know what is going on, and that’s all right. I’m not going to let anyone, or anything hurt you. Okay?

I wanted to believe him but didn’t dare. He might have given me his name, but he was still a stranger. Too early to tell him I trusted him—even if I did.

I’m not going to make you talk to me tonight, but you will need to tell me something. I need to find out who hurt your mommy.

At that the tears started again, and the sobs came in full force. Cal rose and sat on the bed beside me, gathering me up into those bear-like arms and held me. I cried until there were no tears left, soaking his shirt in saline and snot. He didn’t seem to mind.

He lay me back against the pillows and tucked me in, then sat back in the chair beside the bed where he stayed until morning.

2

My phone rang, startling me out of my morose memories, as I stared down the dock of my Cooper’s Inlet home. The tide had risen and put most of the dock underwater again. The last hurricane had nearly washed it away and I hadn’t the opportunity to fix it yet.

Such was the fact of living on the Gulf Coast. In most people’s lives shit happened—in mine it was trauma and natural disasters.

I looked down at the screen and smiled. Cal.

Good morning, Daddy.

Good morning, baby girl. His voice was warm and smooth as it had always been. It never failed to comfort me as it had that first time he’d picked me up out of the back of the closet.

After a lengthy fight with the state, he and his wife had been cleared to adopt me, since I was essentially orphaned, and no one could locate any relatives. Honestly, he was the only daddy I had ever known. I never called him ‘father,’ because that term was reserved for the fucker who had given me half his DNA but took my mother’s life.

To me, calling him ‘father’ put distance between us and I was fine with that. May he rot in everlasting hell.

Look, Lola and I want to see you. It’s been a long time since you’ve been home. We miss you.

I considered the dock with its listing supports and crooked planks. I’ve got a lot going on here. Still have work to do on the house.

There was a very pregnant pause. I could almost see his expression in my head. He waited for me to give in because I was a sucker for him and Lola. Loved them both, though Lola came into our lives later.

It became a waiting game. Who was going to be the next one to break the silence. It wasn’t that I avoided them—I did have a lot to do—I didn’t want to go down memory lane with them. Not around this time of year.

The anniversary date of my mother’s death was coming up and I always had a hard time with it. Cal and Lola wanted me home and safe. Their intentions were good, wholesome even. But this year was different, and I didn’t know why. Couldn’t put my finger on the reason for it. Maybe it was intuition or premonition, but I felt the best place for me would be at home—the home I’d bought, not the one where I’d grown up. Not some hundred miles away in the place where it all started.

Then maybe we could come up there? His voice had an edge to it I had only heard a few times in my life. Never while he spoke to me.

My guts tightened. All right, that spooked me. Something was definitely wrong, and he wanted to tell me while face-to-face which did nothing whatsoever to comfort and everything to alarm.

I balled one of my hands into a fist to keep my emotions suppressed and said in as even a voice as possible, Just tell me what it is that has you worried.

An unsteady laugh filled the phone. Well, that’s the thing, baby girl. I really don’t know what to make of it.

The bottom dropped out. Right then, right there. I felt my legs go wobbly and I went down on my butt. Not that anything he said was shocking or certain. Hell, he said nothing to make me afraid other than the unknown. If Cal didn’t know what to make of something, it was probably very bad indeed.

Cal Sharpe had been a cop for over forty years. He’d gone from driving patrol to running the homicide unit of the Redd Port Police Department. He was as sharp as his last name and every bit as shrewd as the good Lord ever made. The fact he didn’t know what to make of something shook my entire world.

Because I needed something else to go on, Can you elaborate?

We got an anonymous tip sent from a computer at the public library.

My heart raced. What kind of tip?

That’s the thing, it references your mother’s murder, but not directly.

My mind spun. I don’t understand.

All these years, I had been told that my father killed my mother in a fit of rage because she had walked out on him and taken me with her. It fit. Who else would have been sobbing over her murder if not for my father in a moment of remorse?

Who else would have been looking through the house for me unless he meant to take me back?

What exactly did the tip say?

Judith Holland got what she deserved, but not by who you think.

Oh, God! I was going to be sick. No one called my mother Judith. At least not that I remembered. It was always Jude. People would say, Hey Jude, and then laugh. I didn’t understand why until many years later when I finally heard Paul McCartney sing those very words.

Then it hit me. Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that my father might be innocent?

There’s no evidence to point to anyone else. He’s still in prison and had no access to the computer that accessed the tip line. I didn’t like the way Cal’s voice always flattened when he spoke of my father’s guilt.

Someone else then? Someone on the outside who he’s befriended in prison?

We’re looking into it.

‘We’re?’ Cal had been retired from the police for about seven years. He ran a private investigation firm because he was lousy at slowing down and taking it easy. The fish in Silver Creek were safe from him.

You didn’t think I was going to sit back on this one and let the department tuck it away somewhere? Oh, no. This affects my family. I’m going to have my nose in it so far, I’ll drown.

That pulled a reluctant smile from me. I loved him for his dedication and protectiveness. I never had to feel scared or unsafe as long as I knew Cal had my back.

You know, it sounds like you have your hands full. I’ll stay here and work on my dock, you stay there and work on the case. Call me if you discover anything else.

I will.

We said the requisite I love yous then disconnected.

It made me wonder who out there knew more about the murder than I’d been told, or anyone else had known all these years.

3

Cal’s news spooked me. Made me wonder if they knew about me and if I was safe. After my father was arrested, tried, and convicted, I tried to put the past behind me. Of course, that’s hard to do when the center of your world has been ripped from your life at such a tender age.

I won’t claim I was an easy child for Cal to raise. He and his first wife, Remi, did the best they could, I suppose. They gave me immeasurable love and kindness. I gave them nights when I woke the entire house screaming. Fits of uncontrollable rage. The teen years where I rebelled so hard that it was a wonder I didn’t end up in the ground next to my mother.

On that first night in the hospital, my band read ‘Jane Doe.’ They didn’t know my name. I had no identification on me. My mother had rented the house under an alias. It took the police some time to untangle the mess and identify all the players.

For my part, I wasn’t talking.

I remember sitting in my hospital bed, twirling that band around and around my little wrist. I knew my name wasn’t Jane and that the numbers behind it meant nothing to me. I wasn’t a number. I was Jude’s little girl. Her baby. The one she used to rock to sleep every night even at five. She would brush my nearly black, straight hair back from my face and tell me how beautiful I was. All I remember was that I wanted to have shiny, blonde hair like hers.

We looked nothing alike.

I looked like my father. His dark hair and bright-blue eyes. To look at him, no one would ever suspect such evil lurked inside. Though, I guess…what if he didn’t do it?

No. That was crazy. He had to be guilty. I heard him in the house that night. I knew his voice and the sound of his sobs. I’d heard them enough when mother threatened to leave.

Problem was…I’d never seen him. I’d been too afraid to walk into the front of the house and show myself. I’d followed my mother’s directions and hid like a good girl.

Damn. Those same instructions had come back to bite me on the ass. How was I supposed to discover if my father was the killer if I had no way to physically identify him?

I mean, I’d heard him. He had called my name as he walked through the house.

I mulled over the problem for a few moments, staring at the water as it lapped up over the dock. I, too, felt as if I were drowning in memories.

Just because someone sent that message from a computer my father had no access to didn’t mean it wasn’t sent by someone who knew him. Besides, it was an opinion. She might have pissed someone off back then and they let it fester all these years.

Wasn’t like the murderer could do it again. No matter who it was.

Great, I had started to question if the police had incarcerated the right man.

A ball of unease lodged in my stomach. I had been so bent on not doing anything crime related—of taking myself out of that equation that I had become an art teacher in a small town. And not even at a school. I gave private lessons and hosted classes at a local co-op. I also had a sizable following on social media platforms where I discussed techniques and mediums.

I only used my last name of Blackstone online. Never my first name. Maybe that was more foolish than using the first name. Though I imagined there were more people with the last name Blackstone than there were with the first name Dahlia.

The dock no longer held my interest. I couldn’t do anything with it until the insurance paid off and I could hire someone to come out and fix the damn thing. I had this horrible image of it becoming one with the water.

A howl went up from the direction of the house. A lonely lament that told the song of my mutt dog’s people. Whoever they happened to be. The nearest me or the vet could tell, Da Vinci was part hound, part Boxer. It made for an interesting mix. I suppose I had been gone too long from the house. Normally, I would have let him out to wander down to the dock with me. But he’d had a run in with a snake a few days before and was still swollen from the bite.

For such a baby, he was brave. We had been walking out on the trails around the inlet. The snake had been minding its own business, laying coiled. We came too close, and it struck. Da Vinci must have smelled it or sensed it because he got himself between me and the fangs and took the bite to protect me.

Da Vinci took exception and clamped jaws around it and shook it like a rag doll. All the while I was afraid it would strike him again. I loved the obstinate boy so much that I risked undoing all his bravery to try and save him in turn.

I’m sure anyone seeing us would have thought we’d both gone mad.

Luckily, I had my phone with me and called a friend to come get us to take Da Vinci to the emergency vet clinic. The snake did not survive.

Is it wrong I felt bad over that?

He had only been protecting himself. We’d wandered into his sleeping zone and he got startled awake.

When I knew that Da Vinci was going to be fine, I donated to a local snake conservancy. Then I took to educating myself on the different species in my area.

That’s what I do. I learn from incidences like those. Next time, I’ll know. Da Vinci is just Da Vinci, he’s going to do what his instincts dictate.

But I didn’t have to follow suit.

4

The note bothered me.

So much so, that I had trouble sleeping, my work suffered, I didn’t answer calls, texts, or emails. I withdrew into my safe, little house and space. I knew it was counterproductive and that I should force myself to return to the land of the living. But I had a hard time with the entire concept.

I mean, it had been thirty years of not hearing a thing about my mother’s murder. The one guilty was caught and convicted. Why did one person’s opinion mean so much to me? An anonymous opinion at that.

I needed to return to the beginning. To go and dive into the evidence collected from our house. To dig into my mother’s life. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it, but I had to know the truth.

And for the love of God and all that’s holy, I knew the place I had to start, and it knotted my stomach so badly it would take a seam ripper to get it undone.

Hell, I didn’t even know where he was incarcerated. I’d never asked Cal, and he had never volunteered the information. He knew me better than to believe the information the least bit interesting to me. Over the years, I had tried my best to push those few dark months into the back of my brain. Which was probably why I was such a mess for years.

Why I am still a mess.

Instead of calling him on the phone to learn the truth, I packed a bag and Da Vinci’s things and got in my car. If I was going headfirst into this labyrinth of the past, I was going to face it like a fully-realized adult. Besides, if I needed support, I wanted Cal.

The drive down to my old hometown of Redd Port only took a little over three hours. Not too long. I only had to stop to let Da Vinci out once. Poor baby got restless on long car rides, so we stopped every couple of hours to let him pee and stretch his legs. One of his biggest joys in life is sniffing new places. I indulged him for a good half hour before packing him back into the backseat and heading out onto the interstate.

I hadn’t told Cal or Lola of my imminent arrival. If I told them, there was a very good chance I’d chicken out and then end up disappointing them. They did look forward to my infrequent visits. Truth be told, going back to Redd Port was too painful. Because of the