by J. R. Adler
Kimberley quickly texted back.
Yeah. Just picking it up to bring to daycare.
She stopped herself from texting any more. She wanted to tell her mom what had happened, about the note, but she knew it would freak her out. She’d insist that Jessica come home immediately and then Jessica would be on lockdown for the foreseeable future. And Kimberley didn’t want Jessica to know that anything was wrong. She wanted her to feel safe. She wanted things to appear normal, even though they weren’t. Just before she put her phone away, Nicole texted again.
Okay, I’ll be home in a few minutes to help you look. Had to grab groceries.
Kimberley stowed her phone in her pocket and walked back toward David and Nicole’s bedroom. She pushed open the door and flicked on the light. She hated to pull apart the bed, because it would mean her mother would have to remake it for a second time, but she needed the elephant. She pulled up the blankets, sheets, and pillows. Nothing. She checked beside both bed tables, but nothing there either. She attempted to pull the bed away from the wall, but it wouldn’t budge. “Ugh,” she groaned. Kimberley kneeled down to look under the bed, lifting up the frilly bed skirt. It was dark underneath, so she pulled her flashlight from her utility belt, shining a light on the dust bunnies and rolled-up socks, but no elephant.
Ugh. She should have put a tracker on that damn thing, she thought to herself. Kimberley went to push herself back up, planting her hand on the wooden floor, but she paused, when she realized the plank of wood was unstable. She pushed the palm of her hand down harder, the wood rose again, wiggling in its place. That’s weird.
Kimberley stood all the way up and pulled out her phone, bringing up her mom’s number.
There’s a piece of wood by your bed that’s loose. Might want to tell David to fix it.
Her finger hovered over the send button, but something stopped her. Instinct.
She erased the message, putting her phone away. Kimberley kneeled down on the floor again, pressing on several pieces of wood until the unstable one popped up. The whole thing came loose, and she removed it. A hole sat under the floor.
Hesitating for only a moment, she reached her hand into the dark abyss, feeling around. A tickle on her finger. Cotton that stuck to her. Definitely a spider and its web. She had faced worst things in her life than a spider, so it didn’t faze her. Then her hand touched something other than wood and insects. It rocked back and forth. She gripped her hand around it and pulled it out. A shoebox. Kimberley set the box down. Items inside clamored around. The noise didn’t give any indication as to what it was. She slowly opened the box. Inside lay two items wrapped in white rags, almost as if they had been mummified. Kimberley cocked her head. She pulled at one white rag, unwrapping what was inside; a flip phone fell out into the box. She pulled at the other white rag, unwrapping it from its mummification, a 38-caliber pistol landed beside the phone. Kimberley looked down at the phone and the gun. Two pieces of a puzzle.
She reached for her own cell phone and pulled up her photo album. The image she was looking for was right at the front. She went to her keypad and typed in ten digits. Kimberley hit dial. The phone in the box immediately began to vibrate.
33
“Kimberley, Ellie was in my car,” Nicole said, standing in the doorway of the bedroom.
Kimberley was sitting on the floor, knees pulled in. In front of her were her new discoveries, the missing puzzle pieces. Her mouth and eyes were wide as she was working through everything in her head, a hundred different possibilities for why the same type of gun that was used to kill Hannah and the phone that had called her on the night of her murder were in this house. The same phone that had been in contact with her over the years that wasn’t even saved under a name. The same number Hannah had as a contact on her emergency form at the daycare. Why was it here? In this house?
Nicole looked at Kimberley and then at the wooden floor where the board had been pulled up.
“What did you do to the—” She stopped herself as her eyes scanned the box and the contents of it.
“Why are these in your house?” Kimberley narrowed her eyes, meeting her mom’s.
Her mom was a possibility in all of this, as much as she hated to think that. But they were in her house, the house she took care of, the house she lived in, in the bedroom she slept in, just beneath the floor she walked on.
“I… I… I’ve never seen any of that.” Nicole shook her head.
“What about this?” Kimberley pointed to the hole that doubled as a place to stash murder weapons. “Did you know about this?”
“You need to put those things back before David gets here. He wouldn’t want you snooping around his stuff,” Nicole warned.
“Mom! You’re not getting it. This gun, this 38-caliber, is the same type of gun that was used to kill Hannah Brown. And this phone”—Kimberley pointed at it, careful not to touch anything as it was evidence—“I dialed a number that was in Hannah’s call log. The same number that was listed on the emergency contact form at the daycare. This phone rang. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Kimberley closed the box and stood up.
Nicole shook her head. Her eyes swam with tears. “No… no.”
Kimberley knew she understood what she was saying, she just didn’t believe it nor wanted to believe it. She stood up, picking up the box. Her mom kept shaking her head.
“Did you know about any of this?”
“Any of what?” Nicole tried to stand up straight, still in denial, trying to put on a show that none of this could possibly be true.
Kimberley stared into her eyes. She knew her mother knew something. Instinct. It would explain why she didn’t eat. Why she had gotten so thin. Why she had aged ten years in two. Why she wasn’t sleeping well. Why she fawned all over David, vying for his love and attention. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it. All the signs were there. She had been acting like a woman who knew her husband was having an affair. Who had accepted it, even though it was eating away at her, destroying her, she stayed and let it continue, for what, a house to live in, a stable life? But the question was… how much did she know? Did she know he was sleeping with Hannah? Kimberley didn’t think she’d ever forgive her mom if that were the case. She hoped it wasn’t.
She continued to stare her mother in the eyes, waiting for her to break. She knew she could outlast her. Nicole began to crack. Her lip trembled. She looked away first, her bloodshot, sunken eyes bouncing around the room.
“I knew something was going on. He became distant and unaffectionate, leaving in the middle of the night. He used to deny everything. Then he stopped denying it, just shrugging his goddamn shoulders, like it didn’t matter, like I didn’t matter. When the whole moonshine thing with Wyatt came out, I felt the biggest relief. Like that was what he was up to. But now… now. I don’t know.” Tears streamed down her face as she tried to work it out.
“What about the night Hannah Brown was murdered? Was that another night he snuck off?” Kimberley shifted her bodyweight, widening her stance; full-on interrogation mode. She needed the facts. She needed the truth. This man lived in the same house as her and her daughter. This man threatened to hurt her child while he slept one room away from her. This fucking man had played with Jessica, held her… Kimberley shook her head in disgust. How could she not have known? A killer in the same house. Hosting her. Sitting at the same dinner table. Praying to his God as if his God wouldn’t be sickened by him.
Nicole deflated in front of her, dropping her shoulders and hanging her head. “I don’t know. I’ve been taking sleeping pills on and off to help me sleep. I took one that night. I assume he was with me all night.”
“You can’t assume that. If you were passed out, you have no idea what he did or where he went.”
“He wouldn’t…” Nicole shook her head, crying.
“I can’t do this right now.” Kimberley pushed past her mom, carrying the box with the gun and phone.
“Kimberley, wait. Can we talk about thi
s?” Nicole pleaded as Kimberley walked down the hall.
She turned back for a moment. “No. He threatened my daughter, Mom, your granddaughter. He left a note for me at work threatening to hurt Jessica. He’s a monster.”
Nicole cried harder, dropping her face into her hands. “He wouldn’t do that,” she blubbered.
Kimberley’s eyes lingered on her mom. She felt sorry for her. All of her childhood, she had watched her mom stand by her deadbeat dad, and she would have continued to do so, if his liver had held up after the decades of alcohol abuse. She thought when her father died, it was a blessing, that her mother would finally be free, that she’d become whole again. Rebuild and reinvent herself. But all she had done was find another deadbeat man to standby, one worse than her dad. She didn’t think it was possible, but David took the cake. Why was she so weak? Why didn’t she value herself? She was like a pistachio with the nut removed, just a useless shell. She wanted so badly for her mom to be strong and independent, but she was witnessing her childhood all over again.
Kimberley turned back around, startled to see a large shadow cast down in front of her. She followed the blackness with her eyes to a pair of work boots, dirty overalls, the red curtain being raised again up his wide neck, David’s face, and the vein, pulsating in his forehead. She took note of his clenched fists and his feet, shoulder width apart, pressure on the toes, heels slightly lifted as if he were getting ready to charge at her. David’s eyes went from the box Kimberley was holding to Nicole at the end of the hallway, back to Kimberley’s face.
“Mom, lock yourself in the bedroom,” Kimberley said while keeping her eyes on David. She shifted the box ever so slowly to one hand, while her other went to her side, right near her trusty Glock. Three locking points stood between her and her gun. Her NYPD snap holster had two locking mechanisms, thumb snap and rock it forward, to remove the weapon. She had only been in possession of the level-three retention holster for a week and hadn’t had a reason to pull her gun out quickly or at all. She hadn’t even practiced speed of release with it yet, assuming she’d only have to use it to put some wild animal out of its misery after a car hit it. She never imagined she’d be in this scenario in Dead Woman Crossing of all places.
“No. This isn’t what it looks like. He’s a good man. He would never…”
“Shut up, Nicole,” David yelled.
“David, tell her you wouldn’t do this. Tell her. It’s all just a misunderstanding, right?” Nicole pleaded.
“I said shut the fuck up!”
The level-three retention holster had the same first two releases as a level two—those she could get through quickly. The third was a pivot guard.
Kimberley heard footsteps behind her, forcing her to look as she wasn’t sure if there were one or two threats in the hallway. Nicole wasn’t thinking clearly. Her mom walked toward her or through her to David, she wasn’t sure. She was still holding Jessica’s stuffed elephant.
Thumb snap. Rock forward. Pull. Muscle memory had served her wrong this time. The gun stayed in its holster.
The box was knocked to the ground, the .38 caliber and cellphone spilling out. A hand was on her shoulders, throwing her backward into Nicole. She landed on top of her. Nicole cried out. Kimberley scrambled to her feet as David reached down for the gun. She leaped at him, tackling him to the ground, the gun slipping out of his hands. She straddled his chest, trying to hold him down, but he had over a hundred pounds on her, real strength that came from farming. He lifted her up cleanly, tossing her forward onto the floor, the .38 caliber just a foot in front of her. She hadn’t checked to see if it was loaded. She reached for it; she was just short of it. She felt big hands wrap entirely around one of her ankles. Kimberley turned her head, flipping on her back instinctively. It was better to be on your back than on your stomach. She kicked as hard and as wild as she could. David yanked her toward him. She slid across the floor, her utility belt scraping the wood. He stepped over her, his focus lasered on the gun. Nicole huddled in the corner of the hall, crying, telling them to stop. Kimberley stood once again. She went after him as she went for her Glock. Thumb snap. Rock. Fuck.
Two large steps put her right behind him. She yanked on his overalls, pulling him back again. She reeled back her fist, sending it forward into the side of his head. He groaned, but it did nothing to stop him. David wrapped his hand in her hair, twisting it, and whipped her body into the wall, the drywall immediately giving out, crumbling and splitting in several areas.: an imprint of her left behind. Kimberley fell to the ground just as David bent down to pick up the gun.
She reached down for her trusty Glock again. Thumb snap. Rock. Pivot guard. It was free from its holster. David turned with the 38-caliber in hand. Kimberley quickly unclicked the safety and raised the gun.
Two gunshots rang out.
Nicole screamed in horror.
34
Nicole crawled down the hallway with the elephant in hand toward David, who was lying on the ground, writhing in pain. A pool of blood around his head and arm. She screamed and cried, trying to comfort him.
Kimberley stood up quickly, her Glock still aimed at David. She walked to him, kicking the .38 caliber further away from where it lay just a foot above his head. The first gunshot had come from Kimberley’s gun, hitting David in the arm, knocking the hand that was holding the .38 caliber to his head a few inches away. When the second shot fired, it nicked the top corner of his head. Turning a fatal shot into a flesh wound. David had turned the gun on himself, trying to take the easy way out of this. Shame and guilt had caught up with him.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” Nicole said, pressing down on the bullet wound on his arm and running her hand over his forehead.
David stayed as still as possible, his eyes staring up at the ceiling as if he had come face to face with his own God. His body twitched even though every muscle in his body was clenching. Kimberley holstered her gun and pulled out her cell phone, dialing Sam.
He answered on the first ring.
“Where are you? I’ve got Henry Colton here.”
“Let him go.”
“What?”
“We’ve got a GSW. I need an ambulance at my house right now,” Kimberley said, ending the call.
She placed the phone in her utility belt, turning back to look at her mother and David. Nicole was still trying to comfort him as if he had been in a car accident and not in a scuffle with her daughter over a gun that he used to murder the woman he was cheating on her with.
“Get some towels,” Nicole cried, looking up at Kimberley.
“The paramedics will take care of him. They’re on their way.” Kimberley’s voice was cold.
“You can’t just let him die.” Nicole used the stuffed elephant to put pressure on the gunshot wound, soaking up the blood.
“He’s not going to die.” Kimberley shook her head.
“He’s bleeding out.”
“He’s got a flesh wound and a gunshot to the arm nowhere near the brachial artery. He’s fine. Just in pain. I actually hope those paramedics take their time getting here,” she said, pacing back and forth.
“How can you say something like that?” Nicole seethed, leaning over David as if she were protecting him.
“Easily. He killed a woman in cold blood and chopped her head off. He deserves to suffer.”
Kimberley opened the front door and walked outside, needing the fresh air and needing to get away from her mother, who was clearly in shock. She hoped she’d come to her senses when her brain started thinking straight again. Sam’s police truck, an ambulance and three Custer County SUV’s sped down the driveway around the farmhouse and onto the grass in front of the cottage. Sam leaped out of his vehicle, running toward Kimberley.
“Are you okay?” he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder and lifting her chin with the other, checking her over for bumps, cuts, bruises, blood. Her hair was a disheveled mess. She felt a searing pain across her face, where it had smashed into the wall. She was
sure it was red if not bruised already. Her knuckles were torn open thanks to two punches thrown in the last twenty-four hours. Her body ached from being thrown around like a rag doll. Her heart broke for her weak mother. But other than that… she was fine.
“I’m fine.”
Two paramedics with a stretcher and medic bag approached quickly.
Before they could ask, Kimberley said, “Inside.”
They nodded and ran past. When the door opened to the house, she could once again hear her mother screaming and crying.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam asked, holding her face in the palms of his hands, looking into her eyes, searching them.
Kimberley nodded.
He pushed some of her hair back so he could see her better. “You’ve got a bruise coming on right here.” He gently touched the side of her temple, running his fingers down her cheek, tracing the discolored skin. She winced slightly.
“You should see the other guy,” Kimberley teased.
“Burns, grab me an ice pack from the ambulance,” Sam instructed.
Deputy Burns nodded. Moments later, he handed over the ice pack.
“Go on and help them inside,” Sam said.
“There’s two pieces of evidence that need to be bagged and tagged. A .38 caliber and a flip phone. One’s in the living room, the other in the hallway,” Kimberley said.
Hill and Burns nodded and hurried inside the cottage. Sam held the ice pack against the side of Kimberley’s face. “Hold it right there.”
She didn’t argue with him this time.
“I’m going to have one of the paramedics check you out. You might have a concussion.”
“I’m fine.”
“I don’t need you to play tough detective right now. I need you to listen.” He tilted his head.
