If You Only Knew by M. William Phelps

woman was “cold.” He said he “respected her” and she was a “classy woman,” but there was something about her that Danny did not trust. “I have nothing against her. . . .” There was a time when Vonlee had told Danny that Don Rogers had expressed interest in adopting Vonlee and even putting her in his will, and Danny felt that it drove a wedge between the aunt and niece. But now this: something had happened to Don and it was no surprise to Danny that Billie Jean was involved.
    â€œJust tell me the whole thing, Vonlee,” Danny encouraged.
    â€œI cannot take it anymore,” Vonlee said. She then explained that she had just gone out to get her nails and hair done. “And I felt so bad spending Don’s money.”
    â€œWhat happened?” Danny kept asking.
    â€œI felt really, really bad spending his money.... I cannot do this anymore,” Vonlee said. She had tears streaming down her face. She was nearly whispering.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œMy aunt Billie made me do it,” Vonlee said. “I feel so guilty.”
    â€œWhat?” Danny persisted. “Do what ?”
    Was this going where Danny thought? Was Vonlee preparing to admit to something that would place Danny in a position where he was now involved, too? Danny had been in trouble with the law himself years before. He was trying to get his citizenship squared away. There was a lot at stake for him.
    According to Danny Chahine’s recollection of this conversation, Vonlee then said, “Listen, Danny, I need you to promise me something. I want to tell you the truth about everything. You cannot get upset or leave me, okay?”
    â€œWhat’s going on? Tell me. I won’t leave or be upset. Von, what’s happening?”
    Vonlee said Don’s death was not what people had thought it was.
    This piqued Danny’s interest even more. He had suspected as much. Yet, he changed the subject—and as they finished dinner, he was back to wanting to know for sure that Vonlee was a man. He still didn’t believe her.
    â€œShow me,” Danny insisted.
    â€œ Show you?”
    â€œYes, I want you to take me out to the car and I want you to show me.”
    Vonlee gasped.

CHAPTER 21
    IT WAS DIFFICULT FOR Vonlee to talk about the death of Don Rogers, especially what, in her view, actually happened inside 2090 Grenadier on that night. It was a tough conversation because Vonlee liked Don. Beyond a few personal issues with her own life, she had valued Don as a human being. She didn’t see Don as the angry husband in desperate need of controlling his wife. To the contrary, in those days before Don’s death, Vonlee was beginning to see Billie Jean as the domineering wife, addicted to gambling, pilfering her husband’s bank accounts and spending all of their retirement money. Those passes Don had made at her? Vonlee shrugged off as a lonely and drunk guy simply wanting some affection from the opposite sex, craving a woman’s attention that he wasn’t getting from his wife.
    Vonlee had indicated to Danny during dinner that Don might not have died the way in which her aunt said—that there was more to it. Thinking about it ever since Don’s death, Vonlee told her boyfriend, she was sick to her stomach. It was all she thought about. Spending Don’s money made Vonlee feel guilty. Vonlee wanted to leave and go back to Tennessee, but she felt she had to stay; Billie Jean didn’t want her to leave.
    â€œI felt sorry for her,” Vonlee later explained, referring to her aunt during this period. “I couldn’t believe that this person I had looked up to all my life had done something to her husband—and to me.”
    Billie Jean had a secret she wasn’t sharing, either.
    Vonlee was beginning to see that her aunt had invited her to Michigan to stay not as a thoughtful aunt looking to help out her niece, but perhaps so Billie Jean could,