by Uc Amalu, Jr
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
At 12.40pm, Ben walked into the station house. He hung
his coat over the back of his swivel chair behind his desk
and headed to the coffee machine. He noticed Jay’s
jacket propped on the back of his chair. Ben looked
around the room, there was no sign of him.
“Hey Spiros,” he called to a dark haired man sitting at a
desk across the room. “You seen Jayy?”
The man looked up from his paperwork and said, “Yeah,
he walked into the locker room a few minutes ago. I
guess he’s still in there.” Spiros returned to his stack of
papers.
“Thanks,” replied Ben.
“Ahuh.” Spiros mumbled without looking up.
Still standing in front of the coffee ma-chine, Ben rubbed
his chin before spinning on his heel and making his way
past the rows of desks and filing cabinets and into the
locker room. The door swung shut behind him, he
marched past aisle after aisle of tall blue metal lockers
before stopping at the end of the fifth row. There was
Jay, his head in his hands and a sheet of paper
scrunched up between the thick fingers of his left hand.
Ben stood there, unable to move closer to Jay.
“Something wrong, Jayy?” His words pierced the silence.
Jay jumped at the sound of his partner’s voice. He stared
up at him, a grim expression on his face. He stared at Ben
for a few moments before lowering his gaze to the floor.
“Is that Anna’s file?”
His partner nodded, still staring at the floor.
Ben took two steps toward him and then stopped. His
feet suddenly unwilling to carry him any further, he leant
against the locker to his left.
He had never seen Jay behaving the way he was right
now. He was never short of words and had always been
able to look Ben in the eye. Even when they had
exchanged words or differences of opinion, Jay had
never backed down from him or been unable to meet his
gaze. Something was definitely wrong. A cold shiver ran
through Ben. It stung him from the base of the neck, all
the way down to his toes. He knew that whatever Jay had
read, wasn’t good. It didn’t take long for the shiver to turn
to full-blown fear and dread. Ben managed a few more
steps toward Jay. He stopped again and sat on the
bench just a few feet away from him. No words were
spoken; neither man knew what to say or how to say it.
They both remained wrapped in a blanket of silence. In a
sudden bid to return to the land of the living, Ben cleared
his throat and turned toward Jay.
“So you’re going to be a daddy, hey?”
Jay looked over at him.
“That’s great news… Great news.” Ben continued to ramble
on. “I would have liked to have had the chance to be a
Father…”
“Ben.”
“I don’t know what sort of a father I would have been
though…”
“Ben.”
“But you, I think you’ll make a fantastic Dad. I suppose it’s
too early to tell what sex it is yet hey?”
“You need to read this,” Jay whispered.
“Are you hoping for a boy or a girl? Or you don’t really
mind?” he looked at Jay.
Jay’s eyes pleaded with Ben to stop.
“Yeah, I suppose that’s not important is it? As long as it’s
healthy, right? That would be the main issue.” his
ramblings continued on unabated.
“For crying out loud, Ben…”
“Anna and I. We never had kids, couldn’t. But I think I told
you that didn’t I?” he looked over to Jay, searching for a
hint of something in his eyes to tell him that whatever
was in the background check was not that bad.
“You have to read this,” He tried shoving the paper toward
him.
Ben moved away slightly and kept babbling, almost
incoherently. “Of course, I’m too old now to bother with
re-marrying and starting a family. Well I could re-marry
but…”
Jay rose from the bench, walked over to Ben and
grabbed him by the front of his shirt. In one swift but
controlled movement, he pulled him from his seat and
pushed him up against the locker. “Stop it, Ben!”
Ben’s face became ashen, his gait slumped beneath
Jay’s hands and he fell silent. Jay slowly released his
grip and then placed his hands on Ben’s shoulders,
steadying him.
A couple of rookie officers heard the thump of the lockers
and ran around to the end of the aisle, looking down at
the two men. Jay turned and glared at them.
“Piss off!”
The men took Jay’s advice and quickly left.
His attentions returned to Ben, he stepped back from him
and placed his hands on his hips, allowing him time to
regain what was left of his pride.
“I need you to pull yourself together here, buddy.” he said,
looking sympathetically at Ben. “There is some pretty
serious stuff in this file and we have to work through it
together, I’m here for you. Do you hear me Ben?”
Ben nodded and then held his hands over his face. His
fingers dug into his eyes, rubbing them hard before
returning to his sides.
“Good.”
Jay slapped him lightly on the side of his arm in a
reassuring gesture before sitting back down on the
bench. Ben stayed upright against the locker.
“So what did you find?” Ben asked in a tone that sounded
more like he was asking because he had to, rather than
because he wanted to.
“Honestly, Ben, I really don’t know where to start.”
“Jesus, Jayy, how bad can it be?”
“I think this is going to bust the case wide open…” Jay
fished around his locker for the rest of the papers he
shoved back in there earlier. “It will at the very least
explain a lot of why Anna has been so evasive.”
“Give it to me. What’s it say?”
Jay shuffled the papers together in his hands and
stacked them in a neat pile on the bench beside him.
Standing up, he said, “I think it’s best if you read it for
yourself, Ben.” Jay then walked to the end of the aisle,
turned back and added, “I’ll be just outside at my desk if
you need me.”
Fear filled Ben’s body once more, fear of what was on
those few sheets of paper, fear that Anna might be their
murderer, fear that he could be responsible for more
women dying because he refused to see what was right in
front of him. He pushed himself away from the locker and
crept towards the stack of papers on the bench before
him. He sat down beside them. Finally he picked them up
and began to read.
Ben watched Jay from the window of the locker room
door. He was sitting at his desk fiddling anxiously with
the telephone cord. The look on his face was one of
desperation. Ben felt sorry for him, he had tried so hard to
push him to see through Anna, or at least look at her for
what she truly was. But h
e had refused to listen, in his
eyes Jay simply didn’t like her and his suspicions of her
were nothing more than a side effect of that. How Ben
wished that Jay had been wrong, how he wished that he
had have taken him more seriously much earlier.
Anna had always had that affect on him. She somehow
managed to blind him to what everyone else saw as
plainly as the nose on their faces, yet he couldn’t see
anything more than the halo above her head. That was all
he had wanted to see. To this day he couldn’t quite
understand the power she had over him, for so many
years she had pulled his strings and for so many years he
had danced to her beat. Now, it was all so crystal clear to
him, everything fell into place. Her moods, her lies, her
evasion of anything personal and her treatment of him. At
last he knew the truth… The whole truth and it was time
for her to face it as well.
He fiddled nervously with the stack of papers in his hand
before pushing the locker room door open and striding
out into the office and over to his desk. Jay looked up at
him, his eyes filled with uncertainty. Ben threw the papers
on the table in front of him. Jay looked up at him as if
waiting for him to say something. Ben pulled out his chair
and sat down. His hands cradled his head.
“Your fax came through,” Jay started off gently.
Ben stared at him curiously.
“From The Bayside Inn.”
Ben’s expression remained blank.
“The Beaumont’s.” Jay reminded him, handing him the
papers.
“Oh, sure… Yeah, thanks.” He took them and placed them
on the desk without looking at them.
Jay cleared his throat and spoke again, “Seems they
were there the entire weekend. Their credit card slips prove
what time they had meals and room service. Unless they
hired a hit-man, they aren’t our killers.”
“Great, another suspect or two eliminated,” said Ben,
pushing the fax around the top of his desk. “Any other
breakthroughs emerge since I’ve been in there?” He
nodded towards the locker room.
“No.” Jay sighed heavily and leant in towards Ben. “I’m
so sorry, Ben.” He told him. “Honestly, I had no idea what
was going to be in her background, but I wasn’t expecting
what I got.”
“I know you are. I’m sorry for not listening to you sooner.”
He sat up in his chair. “Anna told me about a young
homeless girl last night.”
“What has she got to do with anything?”
“Exactly. I think it was just another little game Anna was
playing to get me off her back. I followed her info and
tracked the girl down, turns out she is safe and well, living
in a youth hostel downtown.”
“She’s gotta be hiding more than what we’ve dug up,
though. Surely those little secrets ain’t that valuable?”
“To Anna. Self preservation is everything and she’d do
whatever it takes to guarantee that.”
“So, if she’s all about preserving her past and her
skeletons, let me ask you this. How are we gonna make
her crack? How do we get her to talk?”
Ben shook his head, “Honestly? I don’t know.” He picked
up the papers on his desk and held them up in front of
Jay. “But I have a feeling once I corner her with this,” he
waved the papers about, “It won’t take long to break her.”
“Do you really think that’ll work?” asked Jay. “You’ve tried
every other tactic with her and she still manages to get
around you some-how.”
Ben rose from his chair. “Yeah, but this time I know the
truth about her. It’s all here in black and white, and that’s
something she never bargained for!” He pulled his coat
from the back of the chair and slipped it on. “For our
entire married life she has lied to me and gone to great
lengths to hide her past. She knew I wouldn’t check up on
her, wouldn’t dredge up the pain of her memories, but
now… I’m going to let her know that I know everything.
Including this.” He held up the last and possibly most
important document in her file.
Jay eyed the document briefly, “Yeah, ain’t that one the
kicker?”
“No wonder she has lied through her teeth.”
“So how are you gonna do this, Ben?” Jay asked.
“This time it’s going on the record, I’m bringing her in.”
Ben thought for a moment before adding, “ Can you do
me a favour, Jay?”
“Sure, anything…”
“Can you do some digging around about the whole
Grimshore saga and see what comes up in regards to
this?” Ben waved the document at him again.
“Consider it done!” Jay picked up the telephone.
Ben tucked the papers into his coat pocket and said, “I’ll
be back in a while. If you dig anything up in the mean
time, let me know. I’ll have my phone on, okay?”
“You got it.” Jay answered. “Hey, Ben?”
“Yeah.”
“Be careful.”
Smiling weakly he replied, “I always am.”
