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“Yeah?”
“Well, the Langhornes read like a horror story. Harry was a psychopath with some creepy tendencies. Geraldine was a lush who never made a decision in her life, and had so many insecurities the shrinks stopped counting. And the kids?”
“What about them?”
“Let’s just say they were not very well-adjusted. Remember, they’d been living the mob life since they’d been born, unwittingly or not. That is not healthy for anyone. And Harry? Well, let’s just say his actions didn’t help matters.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“I sure can. I remember it well. Francine was a junior in high school, and she was the lead in her school’s Christmas play. She was quite the actress, and she had been involved in local theater and performed in all the school productions. Hell, when I was off duty I went to some of them. She was good, I mean real good. A born actress, you could say. And, despite what I just said about nobody in WITSEC going on to do anything exceptional, she might have broken that rule if she’d had the chance.”
“I majored in theater in college. It’s intense as hell, but there’s no rush like being up on that stage,” said Gibson.
“I’m sure.”
“Which play was it?”
“I don’t know why, but I remember it all these years later.Twelfth Night. You know it?” asked Beckett.
“Yeah, we did a lot of Shakespeare in college, but not that one. So what happened?”
“The night came for her to do the play. They’d sold out the show. But before Francine left for the school the house alarm went off. Not the normal burglar alarm; this was the alarm tied directly to our office. Our protocol was strict. When that alarm went off, the family was taken to a safe house, no exceptions. And kept there until we determined there was no threat. Well, we followed our procedures, and because of that Francine missed the play.”
“I’m sure she was devastated.”
“She was even more devastated when she found out her father had intentionally set off the damn alarm, not because there was a threat, but because she had brought a stray cat home to feed it, and the thing had crapped on the floor. And he thought a good lesson would be to have her lose out on starring in the Christmas play.”
“How did you find that out?”
“Hell, he told her, and us. He laughed. But I read him the riot act. I told him if he pulled something like that again, I would rip his hand off. Shortly after that, he vanished.”
“So he presumably had already decided to disappear?”
“Oh yeah. No way he could have vanished so effectively without some planning.”
“And the son?”
“Dougie was strong as a horse. Wanted to play sports and all, but his old man wouldn’t let him. So he just stayed in the garage and lifted weights. At age eighteen he was six two and over two hundred pounds and none of it fat. Blond hair, nice-looking kid. He had all the girls swooning over him. But he didn’t seem to care about that. He sort of closed off that part of his life. He wasn’t a typical teen and he knew it. Why get close to someone if nothing was going to come out of it? At least that was my take. So he stayed in the garage and lifted weights.”
“How about Geraldine? What was her role in the dynamic?”
“She did what her husband told her to do.”
“Didn’t stand up for the kids?”
“Not that I ever saw. The kids pretty much raised themselves. I’m not saying Geraldine was a bad person. But her life basically fell apart after the family got moved into WITSEC. She didn’t cope well. But she apparently liked the mob money that Harry was paid. They had a good lifestyle back in Jersey. But he was no millionaire, at least not back then. Strictly upper-middle-class.”
“Did she work outside the house while in WITSEC?”
“Yep, like I said, that’s a rule. Got to get a job. And it’s not just about the money. We don’t want people sitting at home moping. Only bad things come out of that. So she was a maid for a while at a motel chain, and she also worked at a bowling alley. Then at a Walmart. There were other jobs. All menial stuff. But after the mob business, it was like every bit of energy and ambition left her. I didn’t get all that just from my time with them. Other marshals filled out the story for me.”
“And the kids resented their mother’s not taking their sides, not being there for them?”
He eyed her. “You got kids?”
“Yes, very little ones. And we were all kids once.”
“Well, then you probably know the answer to that.”
