The Broken Mother

by Thomas Fincham

  “All right, Angel,” he said, his voice soothing. “You come to the center often?”

  “I drop by when I need help,” she replied. “I’m trying to clean up my life, you know. I haven’t injected in months.”

  From the fresh marks on her arms, Holt knew she was not telling the truth, but he would not call her out on it. “That’s good to hear,” he said. “So, what were you doing at Emily’s Place so early in the morning?”

  She looked around as if she was unsure of what to say. “I was kicked out of the shelter. I mean, it wasn’t my fault. They were trying to shove their rules on me, you know, so I spent the night outside. It’s not too bad. I’ve been on the streets most of my life.” Her eyes suddenly welled up and she looked down at her hands. “Emily was always nice to me.”

  Holt knew she was referring to Emily Riley, the owner of Emily’s Place.

  “She would always talk to the shelters to get me back in if I got into a fight with them. I used to sleep outside the center’s front doors, but Emily didn’t think it was safe for me. There is a place down the road that’s open twenty-four hours a day.”

  “What kind of place?” Holt asked.

  “A diner.”

  “Okay.”

  “The owner knows Emily. He would let me stay there until the center opened. He would sometimes even give me soup or coffee for free.”

  Holt felt secure knowing that there were still good people out there willing to help the less fortunate.

  “What time does the center open?” Holt asked.

  “Eight in the morning,” Angel replied.

  “And you were here at exactly eight?”

  Angel thought for a moment. “I think I was here maybe twenty minutes before that. I wanted to wait for Emily to come in, but when I got here, I saw their cars were already parked in the front.”

  “And you are sure it was their cars?” Holt wanted to know if there was a chance that someone else was on the property when Angel had arrived.

  She shrugged. “I’ve seen those cars parked here before, so I think it’s theirs.”

  “After you arrived, what did you do?”

  “When I saw the cars, I went to the front door. I figured I would knock, and they would let me in early. They were accommodating like that. Sometimes they would even let me stay late if I didn’t have a place to go, you know. They were very good to me.”

  Angel’s eyes turned moist, and she hugged herself, lost in a moment of silence.

  “Was the door locked?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “So, the center was open?”

  “I think so. They don’t have set hours. Sometimes if Emily came in early, she would open the doors early. That’s why I came twenty minutes before to see if anyone was here.”

  “And when you opened the door, what did you see?”

  Angel put a hand over her mouth, her eyes aglow with horror.

  “You can tell me,” Holt said, his voice still soothing.

  “I saw Melody on the floor. I thought she had fainted, so I went up to check on her, but then I saw the blood.” She shivered as she spoke.

  “Did you touch her?” Holt asked. He wanted to know if he needed to keep an eye out for her fingerprints at the crime scene.

  “No. I was shocked by all the blood. I called out Emily’s name, but when I didn’t get a response, I went inside. I then saw…”

  Angel’s voice trailed off.

  “You saw what?”

  “Paige in the hallway. I knew something was not right, so I called 9-1-1.”

  “And you used the phone at the center?”

  “I don’t have a cell phone, so yeah, I did.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I went outside and waited for someone to arrive. I told the officer what happened. He told me to wait in his car.”

  “After making the call, you didn’t think about running away? I mean, you had just seen two dead bodies.”

  People in her position were wary of authority, and rightly so. They had been marginalized by society for so long that they trusted no one.

  “I thought about it. But these were good people. They were always helping me out. They were my friends.”

  Angel suddenly burst into tears.

  Holt wanted to reach over and give her a hug. She looked like a scared child who, over the years, had been abandoned by all those close to her. And now, with the murders at Emily’s Place, she was abandoned once again.

  NINE

  Holt walked around the property. He spotted two security cameras. One was pointed at the front of the building, the second at the back.

  He returned to the main entrance and saw a sticker on the front door. The sticker belonged to a security company. He dialed a number, and after holding for several minutes, he was transferred to someone in charge.

  Holt identified himself and explained why he was calling. The manager was shocked by what he heard. Holt was perplexed that the security company was not monitoring the property. The manager explained that the cameras were turned off at 7:10 in the morning. After that, no feed was sent to their office.

  Holt was about to grill the manager for more information when he saw a white van pull onto the property. Holt took the manager’s name and telephone number and then hung up.

  A woman emerged from the passenger seat. She was petite with short, cropped hair. She wore round prescription glasses that she pushed up her thin nose.

  Andrea Wakefield was the city’s medical examiner. Her opinion on the cause of death could make or break an investigation.

  Holt once had a case where a man had died in his own living room while reading a book. The only thing odd about the man was a slight laceration and bruising around the groin area. Even after several autopsies, Wakefield could not decipher what caused the laceration and bruising. Holt was ready to close the case as death by natural causes, but Wakefield was not convinced. She spent her personal time going over old medical journals and even murder cases. A month later, she found the cause of death. The man had been shot. The bullet had entered through the scrotum area and caused internal damage. The skin in that area was soft and could fold over the wound, thus covering it.

  With this information, Holt went back to the scene of the crime and searched the man’s house with a fine comb. He discovered a bullet hole underneath the front window. A potted plant was on the ledge with the branches hanging over it, which concealed the hole.

  Holt then canvassed the neighborhood and found out that a neighbor had heard a gunshot the night the man died. The neighbor had gone outside and seen a black pickup truck racing away. The neighbor was unable to get the licence plate number, but even without that, Holt now had something to work with.

  He gathered half a dozen officers and went door to door in search of a black pickup truck. He found one parked in a garage of a house two streets over. That night, the owner had gone out to a bar to watch a football game. His team had won, and to celebrate, he drank more than he should have. On his drive back from the bar, he was feeling elated, so he decided to pull his gun out and fire it in the air. The bullet ended up going through a wall and killing a man. When Holt arrested him, the owner still had no idea what he had done. The bullet from his gun was matched to the dead man, and the owner was subsequently charged with manslaughter.

  Had it not been for Wakefield’s doggedness, the case may never have been solved.

  She walked up to Holt and said, “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?” he asked, confused.

  “That there are three deaths.”

  “I’m afraid so,” he replied with a nod.

  She paused for a moment and then said, “Will Detective Fisher be joining us for this investigation?”

  Holt knew Wakefield had become friendly with Fisher. Holt was not sure if Wakefield had any friends. He knew very little about her, though. All he knew was that she spent more time with the dead than the living. He could always find her examining a cadaver
at the morgue.

  “I don’t know,” he replied.

  She squinted and said, “Please show me the bodies.”

  Just then, a Honda SUV pulled up next to his Volvo.

  Holt recognized the vehicle and smiled.

  TEN

  Holt watched as Fisher emerged from the SUV and walked over to them.

  “Thanks for coming, partner,” Holt said.

  Fisher smiled. “Thanks for calling me.”

  “Welcome back, detective,” Wakefield said. She too was smiling.

  Fisher turned to Holt. The smile was now gone. “I heard on the radio. Is it…?”

  “It’s true,” he quickly replied. “Three dead.”

  She had the same look he had when he found out—a combination of shock, horror, and anger.

  “Come. I’ll show you,” he said.

  He took Fisher and Wakefield inside.

  Wakefield immediately walked over and knelt beside the first victim. Her eyes darted over Melody Ferguson’s body as if storing each detail for the time when she had to pull it out from the back of her mind.

  Melody had an olive complexion, curly dark hair, and full lips. Her eyes were open, and her left cheek was touching the floor. Her shirt was stained red, and there was a puddle of blood underneath her stomach.

  “She was shot in the back,” Wakefield said, sticking a gloved finger inside a tear on the shirt. “By the looks of it, she was shot twice.”

  Holt saw that the shirt was torn in two places.

  Fisher said, “It looks like she was running away from someone, and she only got as far as the second set of doors.”

  There was a moment of silence before Wakefield said, “Let’s see the second victim.”

  Paige Giles’s body was in a narrow hallway. They walked over to her and knelt down. Paige had freckled skin, reddish hair, and an aquiline nose.

  Unlike Melody, Paige lay on her back with her eyes closed. And unlike Melody, it was the front of Paige’s shirt that was stained red.

  While Melody was shot in the back, Paige was shot in the chest and neck, which explained the excess blood around her body. The bullet had severed a major artery.

  “She saw her shooter when she was killed,” Wakefield said, moving her eyes over the body. “And if the wound on her chest did not kill her, the injury to her neck would have done it.”

  Fisher turned to the room at the end of the hall. “What’s in there?” she asked.

  “It’s an office,” Holt replied. “It belongs to Emily Riley.”

  Fisher’s jaw dropped. Like many in the city, she too had heard of Emily Riley and the great work she did in the community.

  “Is she the third victim?” Fisher asked.

  Holt nodded.

  Fisher took a deep breath to compose herself, then she said, “It looks like Paige Giles was on her way to speak to Emily when the shooter appeared from the office and shot her. And when he did, Melody heard it, so the shooter chased her down and shot her before she could get away.”

  “That’s what I was thinking, too,” Holt said.

  He could not help but feel relieved to have Fisher next to him, especially on an investigation of this magnitude. She was his sounding board. He could bounce theories and scenarios off her without feeling stupid. She understood his objective: to land on a theory or scenario that might help them understand what happened.

  A crime scene was a puzzle with dozens of pieces, and those pieces were clues. They did not know how each piece fit. The people who truly knew what had transpired were the killer and the victims, but the victims could not speak, so it was up to them to put the clues together in order to formulate a narrative.

  Wakefield quickly stood up, now finished with her examination. “Let’s see the last victim.”

  They found her slumped in her chair with her head tilted back. She had short blonde hair and emerald green eyes that stared at the ceiling.

  Wakefield moved her gaze over the body, committing it to memory, just like the others. “Two shots in the chest and one to the head.” She pointed at two dark spots on the blouse and a dark hole in the forehead.

  “The shooter shot her first,” Fisher said.

  “How can you be so sure?” Holt asked.

  “If the other two were shot first, Emily would have run out the back door.” Fisher pointed to a door in the office. “Or at the very least, she would have heard the gunshots and gotten up from her desk. She didn’t, which leads me to believe she was shot before the others.”

  Holt could not argue with her, and he did not want to. He was glad she was here to help with what could be his most trying case.

  ELEVEN

  Callaway checked his watch for the umpteenth time. He was at a bar that was a mile from where the husband had pulled the gun on him.

  It was too early for a drink, but he still ordered one. He needed something to calm his nerves. It was not every day someone placed a gun between his eyes.

  Callaway was sure he was about to die.

  He kicked himself for not bringing his own weapon with him. Callaway had a license to carry a concealed firearm, but the gun was safely locked away in his office.

  What’s the point of owning a gun when you can’t use it when you need to? he thought.

  There was a reason he did not always have his piece on him. He was afraid of a shootout. What if he drew his gun and startled the husband? And what if, in doing so, the husband inadvertently pulled the trigger?

  Callaway shook his head.

  Real life isn’t a Western, he thought. There was no way I could’ve surprised that guy. I’m not fast on the draw.

  Callaway preferred talking his way out of a difficult situation. He believed conversation was better than confrontation.

  There were times when force was necessary. If the husband was only out for blood, then Callaway would fight back. He would get shot in the process, and perhaps even die, but he would not go down easily.

  He knew the situation would not have come to that.

  The husband was desperate. All people were when they were caught red-handed cheating on their spouses. Most resorted to bribing him, some threatened him with legal action, and a few begged and pleaded with him. But rarely did someone want to kill him.

  Now, that did not mean he always managed to get away from the situation without a scratch. He’d had his nose broken, his lip split open, his eyes blackened, and, worst of all, his ego bruised. But through it all, he managed to walk away with his life.

  The bartender brought him his drink. He took a small sip of the bourbon, enough to wet his lips and tongue. Callaway had a weak spot for alcohol. He was known to get drunk, but ever since he got back together with his ex-wife, he was careful in how he lived.

  No more late nights at the bars, no more long hours at the casinos, and no more wandering eyes for other women.

  If he wanted his renewed relationship to work out, he had to be on the straight and narrow.

  He shoved his hand in his left jacket pocket. He pulled out the tiny memory card and held it between his thumb and index finger. He thought of all the photos it contained, photos his client would need to destroy her husband—the same husband who had pointed a gun at Callaway.

  Every fiber in Callaway’s body was screaming for revenge. He wanted to punish the husband for what he did. The photos would go a long way in doing that.

  Callaway was a lot of things—a lousy husband, an unreliable father, and sometimes a downright loser. But he was a proud man. He lived by a set of codes. One code was that if he failed to finish his job, he would refund the client his fees, minus expenses, of course.

  He stuck his hand in the right jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. Inside was five thousand dollars—money his client paid him to follow her husband.

  Callaway had a decision to make. He could hand over the memory card and keep the money, or he could destroy the evidence and return the money. The former would further enrage the husband, and he could make it his mis
sion to find and hurt Callaway.

  Callaway was not too concerned about that. He would be extra vigilant when it came to his security. He would not go into a situation without being a hundred percent sure of the outcome.

  What he worried about most, though, was what the husband would do to his wife—Callaway’s client. The man was dangerous. Callaway could see it in his eyes.

  Who knew what he was capable of?

  Murder, perhaps!

  Callaway shuddered at the thought.

  It was best that he walked away from this case before someone got hurt.

  He took a sip of his drink.

  Don’t kid yourself, Lee. You can’t do that.

  There was a reason the wife had come to him for help. She wanted a way out of the marriage, and she needed the photos to do so.

  He stared at the memory card. A part of him wanted to dump it in the bourbon, return the money to the client, and forget that he ever got this case.

  But he was no coward.

  Come hell or high water, he would find a way to get back at the husband.

  TWELVE

  Wakefield said, “I would like to remove the bodies and take them to my lab for examination, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Fine by me,” Holt said. He had seen enough. He turned to Fisher and saw that she was transfixed on Emily Riley. She looked as if she was lost in her thoughts.

  Is it too soon for me to bring her back? he thought, feeling a pang of worry.

  “Fisher,” he said.

  She did not move.

  “Detective Fisher,” he said, raising his voice.

  She blinked. “Yes?”

  “Do you want to take another look at the bodies?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m good.”

  Holt looked at Wakefield. “They’re all yours.”

  “Thank you,” Wakefield said.

  She left the room.

  Holt walked up to Fisher. “Do you want to take a breather, perhaps outside?” he said, gently.

  “Why?” she asked.