Gabriel - Jessie Cooke Page 0,9
other folder. “These are copies of pages from her diary.”
Blackheart opened it and again took his time reading through several pages. Gabe continued to watch him, refusing to let his eyes wander over toward Patrice where they still desperately wanted to be. When his president finished reading whatever was on that page he looked back up and said, “I’m truly sorry for your loss. She sounds like a beautiful person, and I wish I could tell you I remembered her, but I don’t. Those were wild times in my youth; I’m sure there are many other women I met and didn’t remember.”
“And you never wondered how many you might have met and impregnated?”
“No. I had relations with adults. I took all precautions, but as you know, nothing is 100%. I simply assumed if it happened and the adult woman it happened to wanted to bring it to my attention, that was her choice. I wasn’t in hiding, Patrice. Your mother could have easily found me.”
Patrice narrowed her eyes and said, “Maybe she did...and maybe that’s why she’s dead.”
“I’m telling you she did not...but again, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Did you kill her? Did you kill my mother?” Gabe had been taking a sip of his coffee and nearly spit it out when she said that. Gabriel had never heard anyone other than the local police say anything like that to Blackheart, and his own heart seized up as he waited for Blackheart’s reaction. But other than a slight tic of his left eye, he didn’t react. He asked her a question instead.
“No, I did not kill your mother. I can say that with surety, since I’ve never put a hand on a woman in anger in my life. But since you don’t know me, perhaps you should think about it like this: what would my motive have been? Men have children out of wedlock often. Why would I kill her for that? What would I have to gain?”
She looked frustrated as she said, “I don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t believe she killed herself. Just those few pages you read of her diary, you have to be able to see how much she loved being a mother, and that she was happy...I see more reason for you to kill her than for her to kill herself. Besides, I’ve done the research. Women who kill themselves don’t jump off balconies and splatter on the sidewalk. They take a less violent approach, usually.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“Eight months.”
“You seem like a smart girl to me,” he said, softly. “You can see by these diary entries that she hid the pregnancy from everyone...and she talks about how much you look like me but doesn’t say anything about contacting me. So, from the time I supposedly impregnated her until the time of her death, seventeen months passed...seventeen months in which I had no reason to want this woman dead. seventeen months that she had to meet many other people.” When she stayed silent he said, “What did the police say? I assume since you have all of this, you’ve gotten a copy of the police report?”
“Yes, but it’s worthless. They didn’t even really do an investigation. My grandmother had just buried her husband of almost fifty years. When they came and told her that her daughter had been in a hotel room, alone with her illegitimate child, drinking wine and smoking marijuana, and decided to take a nosedive off the balcony, that was enough for her. She didn’t want to know anymore, and she definitely didn’t want a ‘scandal.’ Her whole life was about what our family looked like to the outside world, and she couldn’t have this getting out to the press. My guess is that she shut down any further investigation because as bad as it was to have ‘suicide’ on Kasey’s autopsy report, my grandmother decided that was better than the possibility of what they might find if they looked into her background. It was 1996 but the way her family was so humiliated by her getting pregnant out of wedlock, you would have thought it was 1949. My...aunt...she said that Grandmother figured if they were able to keep it out of the papers, people would just forget about it. Then she used her status in the community to pull strings with the newspapers to get them to bury the story, and Kasey’s obituary was even a lie. It doesn’t mention she had a child