The Ravens Watch: Part 7 (short story)

Rachel and Raphael’s apartment                              

I

t was mid-morning, Rachel had left for her shift at the diner and Raff had just treated Cassie to a home-cooked meal of French toast and fried eggs. Since he and Cassie’s father had made peace, Raff couldn’t stop smiling. Of course, it didn’t hurt to have a beautiful young woman in his life that seemed to spend all of her free time with him.

“I can’t thank your mom enough for teaching you how to cook,” Cassie said, spearing the last piece of egg with her fork.  

He smiled at her over his shoulder while he filled the sink with hot water to wash the dishes, “Well don’t stop trying, she loves to be reminded when she gets stuff right.”

“Got it,” she said with a chuckle.

After the dishes were done, or more accurately, after the two young lovers had dried off and cleaned up the mess from their water fight, Cassie demanded to see Raff’s baby photos.

“Oh come on, you don’t really need to see those, do you?” Raff asked with obvious reluctance.

“Only if you want me to keep coming back here,” she replied mischievously.

“Wow, I didn’t think the blackmail would start for at least another couple of years.” Raff sighed, rose from the couch and walked down the hallway to his mother’s bedroom. A moment later, he returned to the lounge and set several large cardboard boxes and photo albums down on the coffee table. With a rueful smile, he said, “Knock yourself out, kid.”    

Over the next few hours, Cassie looked through the photos with a mixture of wonder and glee. Each time she found a baby photo (of which there were many, much to Raff’s chagrin) Cassie would pause, let out a deeply maternal grown and tell him how cute he was.

Eventually, she came to the bottom of the pile. The last album was also the oldest. Bound with brown leather, embossed on its cover in faded gold leaf was the word matrimony.  Cassie looked at Raff and saw that all traces of irritation had left him. He was looking at his parents’ wedding album with the fascination of a child on his birthday, almost as if he was seeing it for the first time.

As she slowly flipped through the pages, Cassie asked Raff about each one; she recognised the venue as the little stone chapel in the centre of the Raven’s Peak Municipal Park. The ceremony was a small one, but the main hall was lined with flowers of every conceivable shade. This was due to the fact that before he died, Rachel’s father had been a life-long florist.

The album’s centrepiece was a portrait of bride and groom standing on the chapel’s front step. Rachel, twenty at the time, looked resplendent in a white strapless gown and short lace veil. Tommy smiled from ear to ear, cutting a dapper figure in a simple black tuxedo and white tie. His short, jet-black hair was combed back neatly and parted to the right. Happiness shone clearly through his ocean-blue eyes.

“Your folks might be the most beautiful couple I’ve ever seen.” Cassie said in an adoring half-whisper.

“I know. That’s what I always tell her to help her feel better when she gets depressed around their anniversary.”

“Well it certainly helps that it’s true.”

A short time later, they began to put the photos away. This took a while because Cassie struggled to remember which boxes many of them belonged in. Once most of them were properly packed, there was a single box left. As Cassie lifted it to finish packing, she noticed a newspaper clipping lying at the bottom.

It was a short human-interest piece with a headline that read “Patrons flock to The Bird’s Nest tavern.” The accompanying photo was of two men standing in front of the tavern’s large glass window, beaming proudly. Tommy stood to the right and at his side, the other, more smug-looking man had his hand draped over Tommy’s shoulder. On his pinkie sat a large, flashy signet ring and although the image was grainy, Cassie could make out a wolf’s head in its centre.

After reading the article, she said, “Raff, have you seen this before?”

He took the clipping from her and looked it over absently, “Nope, never.”

“Well it looks the guy standing next to your dad is Gabriel Cruz, the business tycoon. According to this, Cruz gave him the money to open the tavern after all the city’s banks turned him down.”

“Hang on,” Raff said “from what I’ve heard about Cruz on the news and stuff, he’s a pretty shady dude. He’s been accused of either paying off or making his rivals disappear for years now, but the courts can never make anything stick. I really don’t think my dad would’ve been involved with a man like him.”   

“Did your mom ever mention anything about him even knowing Cruz?”

“No, and believe me, that’s something I’d remember.”

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” she said as she put the clipping back where she found it.

“Yeah, maybe,” he replied thoughtfully.

As dusk fell, Cassie went home to make dinner for her father, leaving Raff alone with his thoughts. Although he hadn’t let Cassie see it, her finding of that newspaper article had deeply disturbed him. During his childhood, Rachel had told Raff many stories of his father’s tavern, but never once did she say that Gabriel Cruz had been had been his business partner. Raff considered Cassie’s suggestion that it was a mere coincidence and realised that that wasn’t possible because his parents had married before the tavern’s opening, which meant that Rachel must have known. So why had she kept him in the dark all these years?

 Just then, he heard the door swing open and the rustling of plastic packets as Rachel carried groceries over the threshold, “Hello sweetheart, have you had a good day?” she asked with a tired smile.

“Yeah, pretty good. Cassie spent the day here,” he got up, “let me help you with those.”

Rachel looked at her son knowingly, “You’ve never spent this much time with a girl before, things must be getting quite serious between you two.”

He smiled sheepishly, “They might be. Anyway, what’d you buy groceries for? The fridge is fully stocked. “

“Yes, but it’s your turn to cook and I’m getting bored with TV dinners.”

“Very funny.”

“It’s so easy to get a rise out of you.”

Rolling his eyes, Raff said, “Yeah, yeah.  What’s on the menu, since you’re hijacking my night?”

“I thought I’d make my world-famous spaghetti bolognaise.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“There isn’t one, I just haven’t made it in a while.”

Raff started unpacking the ingredients, “That’s cool, but I’m not letting you do everything yourself.”

After the unpacking was done, Raff washed the ingredients and Rachel got to work preparing them. As Rachel began to chop the tomatoes, she asked, “So what did you two do all day?”

“We looked at old photos, there’s hours and hours worth.”

“Ah, that’s nice. You always enjoyed looking at those.”

“Yup,” he said, while rinsing an onion under the tap. “Cassie found something in one of the boxes though, something I’d never seen before.”

“Really, and what was that?” she asked, not looking up.

“An old newspaper article about Dad and Gabriel Cruz.”

“Ouch!” Rachel dropped the knife on the chopping-board with a clatter. She had sliced a deep cut into the index finger of her right hand.

Rushing to the sink, she grumbled, “Move over.”

Raff stepped aside, “You never cut yourself, what’s going on, Mom?”

After running cold water over the cut, Rachel retrieved a box of plasters from the drawer. When she looked at him, Raff saw an expression he didn’t recognise. Her face had become drawn and creased, as if she was in excruciating physical pain and tears were welling in her eyes, “I hoped you’d never find that, I don’t know why I kept it,” she said in a quivering voice, “Now that you have, there’s something you should know.”

They sat across from one another in the lounge, the spaghetti forgotten, “Is it true Mom, was Cruz his business partner?”

“Yes.”

Raff felt a sick, plunging feeling in his stomach, “That’s not possible. I know he had a rough life, but why would he deal with someone like that?”

Rachel gazed sadly at her son, “Sweetheart, try and understand. We married young, money was incredibly tight. The tavern was your father’s dream, but no-one would risk giving him a loan once they knew his background.”  Dabbing her eyes with a tissue, she continued, “Then one day, your dad was walking around the vacant lot where he wanted to build it and out of the blue, Cruz pulled up in his big, fancy car. He knew exactly who we were and said he wanted to help. It seemed like our prayers had been answered, but we never should have accepted that offer.”

Raff pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and groaned softly, “What happened next?”

“Well, for the first six months or so, things were good. The tavern was busy most nights and although we weren’t rolling in it, your father and I earned decent money. Everything was fine until Cruz started demanding a bigger share of the profit. He said that since he was the one that provided the start-up capital, he deserved more reward. They fought about it for months.”

Raff scowled, “So Cruz was always a snake. Why didn’t Dad do anything about it?”

“There was nothing he could do. Cruz threatened that if he broke the partnership, his lawyers would take everything we had. So little by little, he squeezed the money out of us.”

Raff fixed his mother with an unblinking gaze, “I’m going to ask you a question and I want the truth,” he said in a steely tone, “did Cruz have anything to do with Dad’s death?”

A fresh stream of tears began to flow down Rachel’s cheeks, “I think he had your father killed,” she choked out as she began to cry. For a long time, Rachel sobbed uncontrollably, unable to speak. When she was finally able to steady herself, she said, “On the night he died, I had to stay home and look after you because you had a fever. He said he’d close up a little early and come straight home. The week before, Cruz had walked in and demanded even more money. We were barely making ends meet as it was, so when your dad refused to give it to him, Cruz said we’d pay in another way. I didn’t suspect him at first, but when the coroner told me that nothing had been stolen, I knew it couldn’t have been a thief. Besides, having grown up where he did, your dad knew how to defend himself. I also realised that I’d never be able to prove it. Then, on the day of the funeral, there was a knock at the door. When I opened it, the only thing there was a card that read, ‘Gabriel Cruz sends his regards.’ After that, Cruz pulled out of the partnership completely. I tried to keep going, but without your father, everything fell apart.”

Raff stood up, anger and grief burning inside of him, “Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this before?” he shouted.

“What good would it have done? You were just a child.”

Raff shook with rage as he said, “Yeah, I was a child, a child who wondered every night why I didn’t have a father to play catch with, or to teach me how to tie a tie, or how to shave without cutting my lip. All those years without any explanation and you knew all along.”

“I was only trying to protect you.”

Raff pulled away as Rachel reached for his hand, “I can’t deal with this right now,” with that, he went to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. Lying in bed in that dark room, he began to weep for his father like he had not done since the age of five.

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[Catch Part 8 next week.]