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CHAPTER TWO

EVERETT, WASHINGTON

MONDAY, MARCH 13, 2023

9:00 A.M.

As Adam Brewster and his partner, Joel, waited at Paine Field for their flight from Seattle back to California, Adam was in a world of hurt. He had a hell of a hangover, which was unusual for him because, unlike his long-estranged father and his father’s friends and associates, Adam wasn’t much of a drinker. But yesterday, faced with seeing his father and stepmother in the flesh for the first time in close to two decades, his nerves had gotten the best of him. Every time a server had offered him a drink, he had taken it and tossed it down. As a result, he had been way beyond tipsy when Joel had called for an Uber to take them back to their hotel.

The party had been a lavish, catered affair in honor of his father’s sixtieth birthday. When he and Joel had walked up onto the still familiar front porch to ring the bell, Adam had actually been holding his breath, preparing himself for being greeted by either his father or his stepmother. Instead, the door had been opened by someone in a catering uniform. It was only after they stepped out of the vestibule and into the living room that his father had caught sight of him. Whereupon, drink still in hand, his father had made his way through the crowd and greeted Adam with an enthusiastic hug.

“Thank you so much for coming,” he said. “It’s good to see you in the flesh after all this time.”

At that point, his father had turned to Joel with his hand extended in welcome. “And you must be Joel,” Charles Brewster had added. “Welcome. I’m glad to meet you.”

His father’s greeting had left Adam thunderstruck. Things had been far different back when he was a senior in high school. The situation at home had been tough. For one thing, his mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Treatments for breast cancer back then weren’t nearly what they are now, and it was clear from the start that she was terminal. Adam had dealt with it by absenting himself from the house as much as possible. That had resulted in his being involved in his first ever romantic relationship with a guy named Daniel Herndon, someone several years older than Adam.

At the time, Adam had been too naive to realize what was really going on. Dan had claimed to be working toward a career as a professional photographer, and when he had suggested that they take a few titillating photographs of each other, it had seemed like a playful part of their blossoming sex life. It wasn’t until they broke up a year or so later that the reality had hit home. Sextortion is all too familiar these days, but back then it had come as an unwelcome surprise that Danny had sought Adam out primarily because he was a rich man’s son.

After the breakup Danny had threatened to send some of the photos to Adam’s father unless Adam forked over five thousand bucks.

“Have a ball,” Adam had told him. “Do your worst.” That’s what he had said, but he hadn’t believed that Danny would actually go through with it.

In the meantime, Adam had begun noticing that with his mother so ill, Clarice Simpson, his mother’s best friend and the wife of his father’s partner, B. Simpson, was spending a lot of time at their house, most of it at his mother’s bedside. Back then, Adam had really admired Clarice’s kindness to his mother and appreciated her loyalty to a dying friend.

But then Dan had carried through on his threat. Once the packet of photos showed up at the house, all hell broke loose. Adam’s father had been absolutely livid at the very idea that his son might be queer. His father hadn’t actually ordered him out of the house. Adam left of his own accord, and fortunately, he’d had somewhere to go—his grandmother’s place. It turned out his mother’s mother was a lot more open-minded about homosexuality than her son-in-law. She had noticed that her grandson was “different” while he was still in grade school, and she had always been nothing short of loving and supportive. Gran had taken Adam in without a moment’s hesitation and no questions asked.

Two weeks later, when Adam had gone back to the house in Edmonds to collect the rest of his stuff, he had let himself in with his key. On the way to his room, he had poked his head into the master, hoping to say hi to his mom, but she had been sound asleep, with her faithful housekeeper, Donna Jean Plummer, dozing in the recliner next to the bed. Rather than disturb either of them, Adam shut the door and let them be. But when he opened the door to what had been his own room, he had been in for a shock when he found his father and his mother’s good friend, Clarice Simpson, getting it on in what had formerly been Adam’s single bed.

Stark naked, his father had come roaring off the bed with both fists raised in the air as if prepared to knock Adam into next week, but Adam had stood his ground.

“Go ahead and hit me, you asshole,” Adam had snarled at his father. “You can’t hurt me any more than you already have.” Then, pulling the door shut behind him, he fled the house. The rest of his stuff remained exactly where he’d left it because he’d never gone back to retrieve it.

That was the last time Adam and his father had spoken for the better part of twenty years. Adam had attended his mother’s funeral two months later, but during the course of that, he and his father hadn’t exchanged a word.

It turned out that, in his late teens, Joel Franklin, Adam’s husband, had lived through similar circumstances. He, too, had been banished from the family home. To Joel’s profound regret, his father had died before there had been any kind of resolution between them. Joel was the one person in Adam’s life who had urged him to try reconciling with his own father before it was too late.

A little over a month ago, Adam had finally decided to take that advice. Screwing his courage to the sticking place, he had picked up his phone and dialed the number listed for his father’s Seattle-based company, Video Games International.

When the person answering the call asked if she could tell Mr. Brewster what this was all about, Adam came close to hanging up the phone, but he hadn’t.

“I’m Chuck Brewster’s son,” he had said. “I’d like to talk to him.”

When his father got on the line a few seconds later, he had sounded ecstatic to hear his son’s voice.

“Oh, Adam,” he exclaimed. “Adam, Adam, Adam! This is an answer to a prayer. I’m thrilled to hear from you! Where are you living? What are you doing with yourself? How are you?”

Adam had been genuinely surprised by his father’s effusive greeting, and that initial phone call had lasted more than an hour and a half. Before it ended, Adam and Joel had been invited to Chuck Brewster’s sixtieth birthday party coming up a few weeks later on Sunday, March 12.

Lost in thought, Adam was startled when Joel poked him in the shoulder. “They just called our flight,” he said. “Time to board.”

Adam and Joel were seated in first class. Adam made it through watching all the economy passengers file to their seats in the back of the aircraft. He managed to listen to the droning safety measure announcement. And he was still awake when the flight attendant came through taking drink and breakfast orders. Adam assured her that the only thing he wanted was not to be disturbed. Then, once the flight attendants said passengers were free to do so, he pushed his seat all the way back and fell sound asleep. The next thing he knew, that same flight attendant was shaking him awake and saying that they were preparing to land and he needed to raise his seat back to its full upright and locked position.

Once on the ground, they made their way to long-term parking and drove to their spacious home on Churchill Drive in Huntington Beach’s Holly-Seacliff neighborhood. Adam had showered, changed clothes, and was ready to head for the office when the doorbell rang. A glance at the front door surveillance screen showed him that two uniformed police officers were standing on the porch.

“Good afternoon, Officers,” Adam said, opening the door.

“Are you Adam Brewster?”

“Yes, I am. How can I help you?”

“We’re sorry to have to tell you this, but your father was found deceased in his home earlier today. The investigator in charge of the case is Detective Raymond Horn of the Edmonds Police Department in Edmonds, Washington. He’d like you to give him a call at your earliest convenience. Here’s his contact information.”

Adam was floored. He had seen his father yesterday for the first time in decades and now he was dead?

“Are you s-sure?” he stammered as the officer handed him a piece of paper. He stared at it but could hardly make sense of what was written there. “How did this happen?”

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Mr. Brewster, but we don’t have any details at this time. For those you’ll need to speak with Detective Horn.”

“Yes, of course,” Adam said. “Thank you.”

With that, he backed away from the open doorway, shut the door, and then staggered over to the living room sofa.

“Who was that?” Joel asked, emerging from the bedroom while tying the belt of his robe around his waist.

“It was the cops,” Adam answered unsteadily, “about my father. He’s dead. They came by to tell me and gave me the name and number for a detective in Edmonds.”

“Oh, no,” Joel said. “How’s that even possible?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said, shaking his head.

“Are you okay?” Joel asked

“I’m not okay,” Adam answered, fighting back tears. “Just when I’m supposedly getting my dad back, now I’ve lost him for good.”

“Oh, babe,” Joel said. “I’m so very sorry. How can I help? What can I do?”

“Call the office and let them know I won’t be coming in this afternoon after all. While you do that, I’ll give that detective a call.”

Reading from the piece of paper the cops had given him, Adam dialed the number with trembling hands. “Edmonds PD Homicide,” a voice answered. “This is Detective Raymond Horn.”

Homicide? Adam thought. Does that mean Dad was murdered?

“This is Adam Brewster,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I understand you wanted me to call you.”

“Have uniformed officers stopped by to see you?” Detective Horn asked.

“They just left,” Adam replied. “They told me he was dead, but they didn’t say how or why. What happened?”

“All I can say at the moment is that earlier today your father was found deceased at home under suspicious circumstances and with obvious signs of homicidal violence,” Detective Horn replied. “When did you last see him?”

“Late last night—I’m not sure of the time—when my husband and I left Dad’s place in Edmonds. There was a big party for his sixtieth birthday party. We left as it was starting to break up.”

“By ‘we’ you mean you and Joel Franklin?”

“Correct.”

“Are you back home in California?”

“Yes, in Huntington Beach. That’s where we live. We only got back to the house an hour or so ago.”

“Would it be possible for the two of you to come in for a formal interview?” Detective Horn asked. “We’re attempting to locate and speak to as many of the party guests as we can.”

“That’s not really an option right now,” Adam answered. “I’m an architect with a multimillion-dollar project that’s going out for permits by the end of this month. That’s why we flew in for the party late on Saturday and came home on the earliest possible flight today.”

“Will you be returning to Washington for the funeral?”

“I suppose,” Adam allowed. “When will that be?”

“Depends on when the ME finishes up with the autopsy.”

“When’s that?”

“Sometime in the next day or two.”

“Project or no, I’ll for sure be in town for the funeral,” Adam agreed. “Will that be soon enough for us to do the interview?”

“It’ll have to do,” Horn said reluctantly. “In the meantime, did you or Mr. Franklin notice anything off about your father’s behavior during the party? Or your stepmother’s behavior either, for that matter?”

As a kid, Adam had idolized his father. Before their big blowup, they’d been close. Adam understood that, in going to the birthday party, he had hoped to regain some of that closeness. Knowing now that was impossible, he had to swallow the lump in his throat before he could answer.

“Detective Horn, Saturday was the first time I’d seen either one of them in more than twenty years, so I’m not someone who could tell if something was off or not. I did notice that Clarice probably drank a lot more than she should have, but that wasn’t any of my business. By the time she left the party to go upstairs to bed, she was far enough under the influence that Joel actually had to help her negotiate the elevator.”

“Did your father and stepmother seem to be at odds about anything? Were there any obvious signs of tension between them? Any sharp words?”

Adam thought about that. Beyond a single perfunctory hug from Clarice when he and Joel had first arrived, he’d had very little further interaction with her. Nor had he observed any exchanges, angry or otherwise, between Clarice and his father. But he had been shocked by his stepmother’s appearance. In fact, he’d barely recognized the woman. Back when she’d been his mother’s best friend, Clarice Simpson had been a real beauty—nothing short of a blond bombshell. Now she was past her prime and more than slightly overweight. Her facial features had been distorted by too much plastic surgery, and the wig on her head could have used some work.

She’d been at the party, of course, but not really a part of it. She’d spent most of it sitting in isolated splendor in a recliner next to the fireplace in the living room with servers stopping by from time to time to offer various canapés and beverages. Adam had been relieved when Joel, another odd man out as far as the festivities were concerned, had dragged a nearby chair over to where she was sitting and begun chatting with her. That was pure Joel Franklin. The man was kindness personified. But when it came to answering Detective Horn’s questions, Adam chose his words carefully.

“I never saw anything out of line,” he said. “They weren’t especially lovey-dovey during the party, but then why would they be? They’ve been married close to twenty years. Besides, it was Dad’s big day. Maybe Clarice didn’t want to steal any of his limelight.”

“I’ve been given to understand that you and your father had been estranged for quite some.” Detective Horn suggested. It was a statement, not a question.

Adam sighed. “My leaving home was pretty much a mutual decision. He didn’t approve of my lifestyle choices and I didn’t approve of his.”

“But you’d recently reconciled?”

“Not exactly. I called him at work a number of weeks ago out of the blue, just to test the waters. At the time I had no idea what his reaction would be. Turns out he seemed thrilled to hear from me. Much to my astonishment, he ended up inviting both my husband and me to his upcoming birthday party. But that’s the only time we spoke at any length—during that initial phone call. The party was crowded and busy. He introduced me to people—business associates mostly, but it wasn’t the time or place for a long-winded father/son chat.”

“So you have no idea if there was anything troubling him or worrying him?”

“None at all.”

“Were you aware that he had recently consulted with a divorce attorney?”

“No, I was not.”

There was a slight pause in the conversation. “So you’ll still need me to come in for a formal interview while I’m there for the funeral?” Adam confirmed.

“By all means.”

“And how will I know when that is? I had my dad’s phone numbers, but I don’t have Clarice’s.”

“You wouldn’t be able to reach her by phone even if you had her numbers,” Horn replied. “She’s currently being held in the King County jail on suspicion of first-degree murder.”

Adam was shocked. “Wait, you think Clarice did it?”

“She hasn’t been charged yet, but I expect she will be,” Detective Horn answered. “Once funeral arrangements are in place, I’ll let you know the details so we can set up a time for the interview. I’ll also need to speak with Mr. Franklin. If he helped your stepmother onto the elevator late that evening, it’s possible he’s the last person who was with her during the party.”

The call ended then. Adam could hear Joel in the other room, talking to someone on the phone. Meanwhile, Adam Brewster sat alone on the couch and wept, not simply because of what had just happened, but also because of what would never be. He had always thought that someday he’d have his father back in his life. Now he never would.