Jamie Garrett - Riley Reid 01 - Jesters and Junkies Read Free Page A

under her eyes with makeup. It was in vain. Both the sweater and the jeans she was wearing were wrinkled, and her polite smile was forced.
    I shook Mrs. Clark’s hand. “Please, call me Riley.”
    “Come in.” Mrs. Clark led the way into her home. I followed.
    The inside of the Clark residence gave further proof of their turmoil. I wouldn’t call it messy, but it was in disarray. There was a visible layer of dust on the furniture which was highlighted by the sunlight. Papers were strewn about the dining room table. Rugs weren’t vacuumed. Floors weren’t swept.
    “Please, have a seat.” Mrs. Clark motioned for me to rest on the couch.
    “Is Mr. Clark home?” I asked.
    “He’s at work.”
    I took out my notepad. “And where’s that?”
    Mrs. Clark look confused. “Where’s what?”
    “Your husband, where does he work?”
    “He’s an investment banker at Hewitt and Goldman.”
    I nodded my head and recorded that in my notepad.
    “How does this work?” asked Mrs. Clark. “Where do I start?”
    “Tell me why you think your son’s death wasn’t an accident.”
    “I guess I should first tell you that Dennis used to have a drug problem. In high school he started with oxycotin and vicodin.”
    I recorded every word Mrs. Clark said. “Do you have any idea why?”
    “He started spending a lot of time with a bad group of kids. Neither I nor my husband knew when he started with the pills, but we caught on when he started stealing from us.” Mrs. Clark didn’t enjoy talking about her son’s faults. She had trouble looking me in the eye when she did. It was a mixture of shame and embarrassment.
    “We don’t know exactly when he started the heroin. What we did notice were the changes in his behavior. He used to be on three different varsity teams, had a 3.8 GPA, and even led the school debate team. One by one he dropped out of all of those, including school. My jewelry started disappearing. So did my husband’s tools.
    “Finally, we had enough. Dennis was given an ultimatum. He either went to rehab or he was out of this house and cut off financially.”
    “And he went?” I asked not looking up from my notepad.
    “He did.”
    “Which facility did he go to?”
    “Fresh Horizons, outside of Norfolk.”
    “Fresh Horizons,” I repeated as I wrote it down. I looked up. “Do you happen to have an address or contact information for Fresh Horizons?” I could’ve looked up where Fresh Horizons was on my phone. It would have taken me seconds. But I could tell that Mrs. Clark was barely holding it together. Maybe I could give her a temporary break before continuing her son’s story.
    “Yeah, hold on one second,” Mrs. Clark got up and retrieved her purse. From inside it, she produced a business card from the rehab facility. She handed it to me. I glanced at it, then put it in my pocket.
    “He was there for a couple of months. When he got back, everything seemed great… at first. A year later he was arrested for possession. He was caught with two hundred dollars worth of pain killers. My husband kicked him out of the house.”
    “And when was this?”
    “About three years ago, I think.”
    I wrote down what Mrs. Clarke said. It was important in my line of work to record every little detail, no matter how inconsequential it may seem. You never know what will serve as a vital clue later in a case.
    “We’d hear from Dennis every once and a while. I’d get a phone call or a text on holidays or birthdays. Then one day he just showed up here. And he looked good. He told us he was back at Fresh Horizons. He got his GED and was going to start taking classes at the community college. And he had a serious girlfriend. We were so happy for him, but wary. He had relapsed before. But we were hopeful.”
    “His girlfriend?”
    “Holly Kennedy. I have a picture of them together if you’d like it.”
    “Yes, please.”
    Mrs. Clark reached into her purse again. This time she took out a photo. She handed it to