The Country Guesthouse (Sullivan's Crossing #5)(84)

Roger Addison entered the police department in Minneapolis, the place he hated the most in all the world. His AA sponsor had offered to go with him but he went alone. It was important that he go alone. This would be the hardest thing he’d ever done.

His mother had called him a few days ago and asked him to come to Colorado. She said she had a job for him, an important job, and if he’d do this one last time she’d never ask another thing.

He had argued. “I can’t leave the state. I’m on parole!” he had said. “I’m in a good program and I’m not using and I’m done with crimes. I can’t.”

“You’re not wearing an ankle monitor,” she said. “You can slip away for a day or two and no one will ever know as long as you don’t miss your appointment with your parole officer. Just come. I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Tell me what you want me to do,” he said.

And she had laughed. “You think I turned stupid? I’ll tell you when you get here.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with Erin’s little boy, does it? Because I’m not getting in the middle of that. There’s no reason to do anything bad to that little boy.”

“I never do anything bad!” she snapped. “It’s all perception. It’ll be fine.”

But he knew better, he’d been down this road before. He told her he’d have to think about it for a couple of days. Rather than thinking about it, he told his counselor in his rehab program. His counselor already knew about his twisted relationship with his mother, and in rehab that wasn’t a rare story. His mother was a thief. She’d been the one to teach him how to get a wallet out of a pocket or purse. He’d never been as good as she was, but it had gotten him by a few times when he needed drugs. He and his boys used to steal just about anything they could get their hands on.

He escalated his thievery as his drug habit had grown until he was arrested for armed robbery and was facing twenty years. He got away with only three and parole, and that was where he got cleaned up, in a program in prison. It was a miracle, really. It wasn’t at all hard to get drugs in prison, but he got the right cell mate and tried the program.

The police had talked to him about his mother several times but he couldn’t turn on her. Not because she was so good and not even because he cared about her, but she was his mother. She’d been involved in shady real estate deals, in fraudulent guardianship situations. Victoria could smell a potential scam in so many situations and it wasn’t unusual for her to recruit Roger to help out in one of her business deals. Her last project was the guardianship of an elderly man with dementia. She took care of his bills and living expenses out of his account. There appeared to be no will so Roger held the smartphone and recorded the old guy saying that he was so grateful to Victoria that he wanted her to inherit his estate. His assets were valued at around $800,000.

But there was a will executed before the man entered into a guardianship arrangement with Victoria. His original will was drawn when he was lucid and in control, and given he had no family, he had bequeathed his estate to the public library. And the library had a copy of the will and contested Victoria’s claim.

As it turned out, Victoria was part of a small group of guardians headed up by a crooked attorney, and one by one they were going down. And that was when Victoria decided she must find her grandson. She suspected Erin might have left behind at least a good insurance policy. Then Victoria found Noah in the custody of Hannah and a man she described as rich.

“Well, Roger,” Detective Wilhelm said. “I have to say I’m surprised to see you here. Have you decided to talk to us about your mother?”

“I might want to talk about possibilities,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t want to roll over on my mother. But I might have to. Depends.”

“She’s a person of interest but her status is rapidly changing as witnesses talk to save themselves. And, of course, we know where she is,” Bruce Wilhelm said.

“Do you know why she’s there?” Roger asked.

“I think we’re up to speed, but why don’t you tell me why you’re here?” the detective said.

“My sister,” he said. “I never treated her right. At first because I was a spoiled kid and later because I was a delinquent usually on drugs. I’ve been clean a few years. Well, three and change. And my sister is dead. I wasn’t able to make amends.”

Wilhelm frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything? You know what I want to know. I want to know about that crooked guardianship con your mother was running with her crew.”

“It wasn’t her crew,” Roger said. Because, as Roger knew, she liked to work alone.

“Okay, she was recruited or she heard about their con and got on board—doesn’t matter which. Does that conspiracy have something to do with your sister?”

“No, I can’t tell you about the guardianship thing—I wasn’t involved. Since I’ve been in a program, I keep a safe distance. Really. But something might be happening that would be bad for my sister. My dead sister. See, she had a kid. She had a kid and a will that said to keep that kid away from her family, specifically me but also my mother. The reason my mother’s in Colorado is to see if she can get custody of the kid. He’s just a little boy and he’s on crutches. I guess he’s got some kind of disease or something. Like I said, my sister didn’t talk to me. But my mother wants me to come to Colorado and do a favor for her.”