I'll Fly Away

Chapter Four: Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

[Author's note: Warnings: non-canon character death, violence, trauma, sexual assault]

January, 1986

It's never good news when the phone rings at 4 a.m.

Even as I groped for the receiver and tried to get my head clear enough to say a coherent "Hello?" I was bracing myself. Something had happened to Diane. The hangar had caught on fire. Sherry's boat had capsized. And the voice of reason was going 'it's just some drunk dialing the wrong number'.

But it was Clint. "Jeannine," he said, and stopped.

"Clint? What's wrong?"

"Jeannine, Mom's dead."

"What? What happened? Where are you?"

"I'm at the hospital. St. Joe's. The police told me to call somebody who could pick me up—"

"Baby, I'm coming. I'll be right there," I said, scrambling on the floor for my jeans. "Where do I come to meet you?"

I heard him mumbling to someone, then, "They said come to the emergency room, tell them you're there for me and somebody will meet you."

"Okay, Clint. I'm on my way. Hang on."

God, the poor kid, he sounded like hell. I hung up, grabbed my jacket, jammed my feet in my shoes and ran for the door, snagging my purse and keys on the way out.

It was drizzling, and the lights shining on the wet, empty streets made everything even blurrier and more surreal. I tried to get fully awake. What could have happened? Rachel was in good health, far too young for a heart attack or stroke. Surely she couldn't have been driving at this time of night and had a wreck. A fire?

I pulled into the parking deck, found a space and hoofed it to the ER entrance. I slowed down as I got close to the door so as not to freak out the security guard. He just nodded to me; I'm sure they're used to panicky people, but I try not to startle folks with guns.

"I'm here to meet Clint Barton," I said to the woman at the desk.

"Could I get your name?" she asked.

"Jeannine Dupree," I said. She nodded, looked at a list, and then paged someone.

A woman in a business suit came around the desk. "Miss Dupree? Follow me, please," she said. "I'm Karen; I'm one of the social workers."

I tried not to tense up. "Social worker" was right up there with "boogeyman" when I was growing up. I reminded myself what unreliable sources my parents were.

"What happened?" I asked. "Was there a fire?"

"In here, please," Karen said and led me into a small room with a table and two chairs. There was a box of Kleenex on the table. This, in my experience, means someone's expected to start crying. Karen gestured me to a chair and sat in another.

"Rachel Barton was murdered," she said bluntly, "and her son found her body."

"Oh, my God," I said. "Where's Clint? Is he—Jesus Christ, of course he's not okay. Is he hurt?"

"He's not injured. The police have interviewed him, and they'll allow him to go home with you. But I wanted you to be prepared first."

"Thank you," I said distractedly.

"Mrs. Barton was also sexually assaulted."

"Holy God. Does Clint know that?"

She nodded. "Apparently it was obvious from the way...the body was left," she said.

"How was she killed?"

"Her throat was cut. She was dead on arrival, but...it's possible she was still alive when he found her."

"God." I covered my face for a moment, gulping air, trying to get hold of myself. He was going to need me together and calm. Oh dear God, the poor kid. "Is anybody with him?"

"Just one of the police officers. He called a friend, but apparently they're out of town."

"Please, can I see him now?"

"Of course," she said. "Follow me."

She led me down the hall to a room marked "Family Lounge"; there was a coffeemaker, a TV, several chairs and the ever-present box of Kleenex. The room was empty except for a somber-looking young cop and Clint, staring at the TV with a stiff, expressionless face. He looked up as I came through the doorway. As soon as he saw me, he caught his breath in a sob; his face twisted, and he jumped up and threw himself at me.

I grabbed him and held on tight. He clutched my jacket in both fists, buried his face in my shoulder, and wept so hard his whole body shook. The cop looked embarrassed, and guilty for being embarrassed. I stood there holding my murdered friend's son and wondered how on earth anything was ever, ever going to be all right again.

"Oh honey," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."

I held him as he cried, rocking back and forth slightly, as if I could help. As if my arms could shield him from the least particle of the evil and horror of the universe. As if I had a clue. Dear God.

After a while, his crying got quieter. "You want to get out of here?" I asked. He nodded and let go of me, sniffling. I grabbed a handful of Kleenex and handed them to him, put an arm around him and steered him down the hall to the emergency room entrance. The rain had stopped, but the trees were still dripping.

We got in the car and I turned the heat way up. He sat hunched in on himself with his arms wrapped around him.

"If you want to talk, I'll listen," I said to him. "But I'm guessing you've had enough questions for tonight."

"Yeah," he said hoarsely. Then after a few more blocks, "Thanks for coming to get me."

"Of course," I said. We rode a little longer in silence.

"What did they tell you?" he asked me.

"That you found your mom's body. And..." Jesus, it was hard to say, but if I didn't say it he'd have to. "...and that she'd been raped and her throat was cut."

"Yeah." More silence. "I didn't...I didn't see the guy. But I think I heard his car. I was sleeping out on the platform and I think that's what woke me up."

"God Almighty."

We pulled into the parking lot of my apartment building. He got out of the car, moving stiffly. I put a hand on his back as we walked in. I sat him down on my futon and draped a blanket around his shoulders because he was shivering. I made him a cup of tea without asking. I figured if he didn't want to drink it he could at least warm his hands on it. I sat by him with an arm around him as the hours slowly, slowly ticked by.

He drank a few sips of the tea but mostly just stared at it. Eventually he put it down and put his hands over his face.

As the sky began to lighten, he was starting to nod off. I got up and got him a pillow and he lay down on the futon and fell asleep. He looked like a wounded animal: curled in on himself, terribly vulnerable.

I sat down at the kitchen table and started making lists. People who needed to be called: next of kin, Clint's school, Rachel's bank, Armstrong, her lawyer. Funeral home, oh dear God. Clint was going to need some kind of professional help. I needed to get on that fast. I bet he didn't own a suit; he would need one for the funeral. I'd need to get some of his stuff from the house, clothes, address book, school books and so on. God. Would the police let me? Who'd take care of the financial stuff until Clint turned eighteen? Did Rachel have a will?

Jesus, the first person I would have turned to with all this would have been Rachel. I felt a huge hole open up in my life. I couldn't imagine what this would be like for Clint.

Once it got to be 7:30 I went in my bedroom and closed the door so I could make phone calls without waking him up. I called his school, told them he'd be absent due to a death in the family. I called Rachel's office and told LaShonda that Rachel had died and Clint was with me, but that I didn't want to give out any details just yet; got Rachel's emergency contact phone numbers from her; and asked her to have someone in the Department of Social Work call me as soon as they got in.

LaShonda had three emergency contacts listed for Rachel; Alexis Grant in Ames, Iowa and Steve McKillip at Georgia Southwestern were both listed as "friend", and James Barton in Oakland, California as "brother-in-law". I decided to go East-to-West because of the time difference.

Steve answered his phone on the first ring. "Hello?"

"Mr. McKillip. My name is Jeannine Dupree, and I'm calling because you're listed as an emergency contact for Rachel Barton," I said.

"Yes," he said. "Has something happened?"

"Yes sir," I said. "Rachel died last night. I'm a friend of the family, and I wanted to let you know that Clint's as all right as could be expected, and he's staying with me."

"What happened?"

I hesitated. "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I should give out details right now. Clint was up all night and he's asleep. Once he wakes up and we can talk things over, I'll call you back and let you know about funeral arrangements and all that. Let me give you my address and phone number."

"Hang on, let me get a pencil. And please tell me your name again."

"Jeannine. Jeannine Dupree."

"Oh. Rachel's talked about you. Okay, I'm ready."

I gave him my contact information.

"Thank you, Jeannine," he said. "I'm glad you're there to help Clint, but I'm sorry it's fallen to you. Please let me know if there's anything I can do."

"Yes sir. I will."

It was still too early to call Iowa or California. I went back out to the kitchen and started some coffee.

Clint appeared soundlessly in the doorway. I jumped. He didn't seem to notice.

"Do you drink coffee?" I asked. He shook his head. "Juice? Water?"

"Water," he said hoarsely.

"Sit down," I said. I brought him the water and a stack of graham crackers. "Eat if you can," I said. He nodded, but made no move to eat.

"I called school and told them you'd had a death in the family. I called LaShonda and told her too, and one of your mom's emergency contacts. I didn't give anybody any details."

He nodded.

"Who's James Barton?" I asked.

"My uncle," he said. "My dad's brother. He's in California. Oakland."

"Are y'all close?"

"No. We see him maybe every other Christmas. He writes once in a while. He's a lot older than Dad. Than Dad would be."

"Do you have any relatives closer?"

He shook his head. "He's next of kin. Mom's...Mom was an only child. Her parents are both dead. Dad's mom is in a nursing home in California; his dad died last year."

I nodded. "Once it gets a little later, we need to call your Uncle James. I can if you'd rather, or you can. It's up to you."

"I'll call him," he said.

"Okay. In the meantime, we have some work to do. And I'm sorry, but I don't know much more about this than you do. We have to make funeral arrangements. We have to find out if your mom left a will. There's probably some other stuff I'm not thinking of yet; one of the social work people is supposed to call me later and help walk us through this. You can stay here as long as you want, but I imagine your uncle's going to want you to come to him. Do you know if your mom had a lawyer?"

"Yeah. Dave. Um, Dave...shit. I can't think of his name."

"Give it time."

"Bright-something. Brightwell, something like that."

I pulled out the phone book and looked in the yellow pages. "Breitreiter?"

"That's it."

I called the law firm and left a message on their answering machine.

"Did the cops tell you who to call if you wanted to talk to them?"

"Yeah." He fished in the pocket of his hooded jacket and came out with a crumpled business card. Detective Sarah Logan. I noticed for the first time that I didn't recognize the clothes he was wearing: a long-sleeved t-shirt, sweat pants and jacket, all slightly too large; athletic socks and worn tennis shoes. All probably lent to him by someone at the hospital. I thought about bloodstains, and felt sick. I tried to keep it off my face.

"Okay. I'm going to call her and find out about getting stuff out of your house. I need Rachel's address book, and you need clothes and stuff. Make a list and I'll go get what you need." I tore off the top sheet of the legal pad I'd been writing notes on, and pushed the pad and pen over to him.

"Jeannine," he said, staring down at the note pad.

"What, honey?"

"Stay out of her bedroom. There's...a lot of blood." He stayed staring down at the blank page as his tears spotted it and his shoulders shook. He wept silently for a long time. I stood next to him, holding him by the shoulders. After a while I dug some Kleenex out of my pocket and put it in his hand. He took a deep breath, pulled himself together and blew his nose. Then he picked up the pen, flipped to a dry sheet of paper, and started writing.

I left him alone for a while. Then, once he'd finished his list and pushed it over to me, I said, "Look. I don't want to leave you by yourself. Is there somebody you'd like to have come over here?"

"Michael, maybe. After school."

"Okay. I'll stick around till school lets out, get all the telephone stuff out of the way. You can help me brainstorm who else we need to call." I checked the clock. "Let me call Ms. Grant, and then when I'm done you can go ahead and call your uncle."

Alexis Grant was shocked and tearful. "Please, tell me what I can do," she said.

"I guess, just pass the word along to anyone else up there who knew the family," I said. "I'll call you back when we have funeral arrangements made." I grabbed my list and added Change of address form for Clint & Rachel's mail to it.

"Okay, phone's all yours," I said to Clint. "Want to use the one in my room so you can have some privacy?"

"No, it's okay," he said.

The phone call to his uncle was brief and matter-of-fact. He told James that Rachel had been murdered, but not that she'd been raped and not that he'd been the one to find her. James told him he'd be down as soon as he could get a flight; I said to tell him we'd pick him up from the airport.

Clint sat still after he hung up, looking numb and lost. "Did I tell you they thought I might have done it?" he said, without looking up.

"Good God, Clint," I said. "What makes you think that?"

"They took my fingerprints," he said.

"Honey, they're going to be dusting the house for prints and they need to know which ones to eliminate. Yours, Rachel's, anybody else's who had a reason to be there."

"You sure?"

"Yes. If you were a suspect, they'd be holding you. They wouldn't have let you come home with me."

"Oh." He stayed silent for a while. "But I messed up the crime scene."

"How?"

"I...she was tied up. I untied her. I covered her up."

"Baby, you're not a detective. You're her son. You were acting like a human being. It's okay."

"What if he gets away because of me?"

"He won't. Stop it, now. Stop beating yourself up. A horrible thing happened and none of it was your fault."

"If I'd been sleeping in the house—"

I took him by the shoulders. "Clint Barton. Stop now. This won't help. Stop thinking about that and think about what needs to be done next. We have to get through the rest of today. We have to let people know she's gone. And we have to start thinking about how to pay our respects. That's enough for now." I looked around. "Here, I have a job for you. People are going to start bringing food. We need to make some room in the fridge. Come help me."

About the time we finished that, Amy from Social Work called. I was on the phone with her a long time, and my list got a lot longer, most of it stuff that James would have to handle as next of kin. Obituary. Certified copies of death certificate to all utilities, bank, workplace, mortgage co., auto loan co. if any. Transfer of body to funeral home. Since Rachel had been murdered, her body was considered evidence; this took precedence over her organ donor card and any family preferences about cremation vs. burial. We'd probably have to hold a memorial service now with burial later.

I asked Amy to get me a list of counselors, psychiatrists and social workers who were covered by Armstrong's insurance. She said she would, but that Clint's regular doctor would have to give him a referral. I added that to the list too.

"Clint, make me a list of people you want to have help with the funeral arrangements and the obituary. People who knew her best, who'd know what she wanted."

LaShonda came over, with a squash casserole, hugs for Clint, and two ladies from her church. The three of them pitched in and cleaned my apartment till it shone. I was embarrassed but grateful. By noon, flowers, more food, and offers of help started streaming in. Clint was starting to look like he was held together with Scotch tape. I sent him to my room to lie down and sleep or read, and told him to come out only if and when he felt like it.

James called and told me his flight would be getting in at 5:15. Clint called Michael, who agreed to come over and stay with him. LaShonda said she'd stay too. I called Detective Logan and made arrangements to meet her at the house to pick up Clint's things. Logan told me they were holding Rachel's address book as evidence, but would let us have a copy.

Things started running together into a blur, and I honestly don't remember how that day ended or when I finally got to bed.