Tear Me Apart

by J. T. Ellison

  Yes, a little distance, a few niceties, this he can give the man who worked so hard to find his wife’s killer, his daughter’s kidnapper. Never mind that he failed to find the culprit. Most husbands wouldn’t be so forgiving of that fact.

  He takes a bracing sip of Laphroaig, then picks up the phone and dials.

  “Metro Police.”

  “Homicide, please.”

  Silence, then a click. A voice he doesn’t recognize answers.

  “Parks here.”

  “I’m looking for Sergeant Gorman.”

  More silence. “Um, sir, I’m sorry, but Sergeant Gorman is no longer with us.”

  The rage blooms bright in his chest. How dare he leave without at least saying goodbye? Without warning him he was handing off the case to another detective?

  He pulls himself together. “When did he retire?”

  “He didn’t. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Sergeant Gorman passed away. Is there something I can help you with? I’ve taken over the day shift. Sergeant Bob Parks.”

  “I’m Zack Armstrong.”

  Another brief silence. He hears papers flipping in the background, the bray of a distant laugh. He’s been in that office often enough to know that the room is tiny, there is a television in the corner above the desk, and the homicide office itself is a warren of cubicle desks that house a bunch of detectives who are practically on top of one another. They are moving soon, to a new office space, one he assumes will be shiny and clean, state of the art. Maybe they already have. Maybe his image of the scene is already distorted.

  “How can I help you, Mr. Armstrong?”

  The tone is neutral but inquisitive. Polite. As if the man has no idea who Zack is.

  “I’m calling to inquire about the status of a cold case from 2000. The murder of Vivian Armstrong. My wife.”

  The cop’s response is automatic but sincere. “Oh. I am so sorry for your loss.”

  If Zack had a quarter for the number of times he’s heard those words...

  “Sergeant Gorman was my contact for the case. No one phoned to tell me he’d passed away.”

  “Sorry about that, sir. It was sudden, an accident. We’re only now settling the squad’s reorganization.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “That’s...personal information I’m not authorized to release.”

  “Right. How did I not hear about this? I read the papers. There’s been no report of the sergeant’s death.”

  “His family didn’t want a lot of attention. It’s been hard for them.”

  “I see. Well, I am terribly sorry to hear about this, but as I said, I’m calling for an update on my wife’s case.”

  “2000, right? Vivian Armstrong? I remember it. I was patrol back then. I didn’t work the scene, but it was certainly news everywhere. Your infant daughter was kidnapped as well if I recall.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Weren’t you the one who found your wife? You were out of town and came home to find her dead?”

  Zack grits his teeth. He hears the lingering question in the cop’s tone. Are you sure you didn’t fly off the handle and murder your wife? You can tell me the truth.

  “Yes. I was in Gulf Shores. My mother was ill.”

  “Well, I don’t have any updates for you, sir, but I’m happy to pull the case files and give it a look. Can I call you back?”

  “Of course. Thank you.”

  “Same number and address as is in the file?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Give me a few days, okay?”

  “Absolutely. Thanks.”

  Zack hangs up, feeling oddly elated. New eyes. He hasn’t had new eyes on this case in years.

  He takes the Laphroaig and steps over the dog. The stunning fawn Belgian Malinois lifts her pretty head, and he can swear she raises a furry brow.

  “Sorry to disturb, Kat.” Kat—short for Katerina—sighs heavily and wags her tail. “You don’t need to get up, honey. I’m just going to look.”

  Another wag, the rug catching under her powerful tail. She understands him better than most people. She puts her head back on her paws, and Zack walks down the hall toward the guest room.

  His house on Love Circle is modern, boxy, all glass and exposed brick. Impersonal, some would say. He designed it himself, placed it on the hill where he can look over the city. He can also walk or bike to work, which makes life easier. Easier? More convenient.

  The cozy house where he lived with Vivian and the specter of his daughter was torn down years ago. He couldn’t fathom anyone living in it, and he certainly didn’t want to stay there. He’d never be able to look at the kitchen floor again without seeing the blood. He arranged to have it dismantled, giving undamaged sections to Habitat for Humanity. A crane had taken the roof off in one piece. Goodwill had taken the furniture. The remainders: doors, windows, beams, had gone to the various housing charities throughout Nashville. He left with nothing but their wedding photos, a sonogram, and the clothes on his back.

  He started fresh. New. But he didn’t start over.

  The guest room walls are plastered with news stories. Some are yellowed and crumbling, some are more recent, printouts from online crime websites and missing persons’ networks, websites that sometimes revisit the case and speculate as to the perpetrator. He entertained every theory they threw out, even those that blamed him, claiming he hired someone to kill his wife and sell his baby into the world of traffickers.

  Those people are insane, as everyone is aware. He passed a lie detector with flying colors and was never a legitimate suspect. Not really. Not with his alibi. No one could make the timing work, no matter how hard they tried.

  He fingers the most recent story, done three years earlier. It is an age progression analysis of what Violet might look like as a teenager.

  He stares at the stranger’s face, at his own tilted eyes, at Vivian’s strong nose, the lips not thin, like his, nor full, like Viv’s, but somewhere in between, teeth an amalgamation of his and hers based on an algorithm of age and length and root depth, and knows it isn’t even close to being right. This is not his daughter. He might not know what she looks like, but she doesn’t look like this.

  Of course, he’s never seen her. Never felt the warm round of her head in his palm, saw the strong flexibility of her body, smelled her skin. She was taken while he was burying his mother in the quaint town of Gulf Shores, Alabama, and he never had a chance to meet his little girl.

  He’s always suspected the crime wasn’t committed by a stranger. No, the villain was, is, closer to home. It has to be someone he came in contact with, someone who felt he did them wrong. Someone who wanted to punish him. His old job was in intelligence, the people he worked with were criminals of the worst sort, hidden from the world, taking money to divulge secrets. They were whores, all of them, himself included.

  Of course, the police saw it differently. They’d looked at him hard from day one, but his alibi was ironclad. He’d been standing over his mother’s grave, with 100 witnesses, six hours away. When he got home the next day, worried after several calls home went unanswered, the blood was dried black on the floor.

  No matter, they still investigated him six ways to Sunday, took apart his finances and phone records, interviewed every person he’d come in contact with, everyone they knew in Nashville. It was Gorman who’d finally put a stop to it. Gorman knew Zack was innocent. There were no hard feelings. They were doing their jobs.

  Unfortunately, after Zack, there were no other suspects.

  He sits on the desk chair and stares at the walls. Kat pads in and sits by his side, putting her head under his hand. Support. She gives him unconditional love, support, and protection. Better than any person he knows.

  The cut crystal glass is empty. He debates a moment—more? He hasn’t eaten, and he has a
mound of papers to grade. Zack always eschews the services of his TAs in favor of doing his own work. He likes to see the students’ progress, detemine if they are becoming better writers under his tutelage. Another drink will send him into the stratosphere, and he won’t get any more work done tonight. But it is a three-day weekend, so who the hell cares when he gets the papers graded?

  “Come on, girl,” he says quietly, and Kat follows him out. He stands in the doorway for a moment, staring at the detritus of his life, then closes the door with a gentle snick, goes to the kitchen, and the open bottle.

  35

  The hangover is bad. It is made worse by the need to rise from the rumpled bed and answer the calls of nature, for both Zack and the dog. The sun’s incessant climb burns his eyes, and of course, Kat decides it is a morning to be happy, to run and frolic, tugging hard at the leash until Zack relents and guides them to the dog park. He unsnaps her lead and she takes off running, long legs loping over the dead winter grass, to the very edge of the park, the border of the woods, where she stops, on point, and stares into the darkness. The thick fur ruffles along her back, and a soft growl comes from her throat.

  A deer in the woods probably, or some other creature. He whistles for her, sharply, a hand going to his head as if the pain can be contained, but she doesn’t move.

  He finally stalks across the park to get her, and even then she resists, looking back over her shoulder and whining as he pulls her away.

  “Come on, Kat. Knock it off, and I’ll go by Publix and get you a bone. Wanna bone? Wanna yummy bone?”

  Kat is not in the mood for his kind of play. She wants to growl at the trees. She hangs her head and plods next to him, the very picture of dejection.

  They are a pair.

  Walking away, he smells hyacinth. Strange, since it is late winter, and nothing is blooming yet. Vivian wore a similar scent, but not exactly the same. His heart squeezes, as it does every time he thinks about his dead wife. He sniffs again, but the smell is gone. All in his mind. Nothing unusual there. Over the years, he’s caught a perfumed whiff at the strangest times, and almost always when there are no flowers in sight. He went to a doctor once, after looking up olfactory hallucinations and finding out it could actually presage a stroke or other terrible illnesses. The doctor checked him out thoroughly, told him he was still in mourning, and reassured him there was nothing physically wrong.

  Mentally, on the other hand...

  Back up the hill, he unlocks the front door and practically has to push the dog inside. She finally gives in and trots to the kitchen, ears perked. He follows, slightly chagrined to see the mess. The empty bottle—no wonder he feels like hell warmed over—is sideways in the sink, the glass on the counter, a sticky pool of dried Scotch next to it.

  “Impressive showing, Zack.”

  He cleans up, then makes himself some eggs and bacon. He scarfs them down straight out of the pan, standing over the sink, tops it with orange juice, reheated coffee from yesterday’s pot, and a handful of Advil. He throws a crunchy bone to Kat, who eyes it but doesn’t pounce. He heads to his office.

  He boots up his computer, pulls his cell phone from the charger. He’s missed a call, and there is a message. The number is one he recognizes—Metro Nashville Police.

  Crap, the call came in half an hour ago, while Katerina acted up in the park. He fumbles with the phone in his hurry to return the call, not bothering to listen to the message.

  “Can I speak to Bob Parks, please? Homicide.”

  A click, then silence, then the phone starts to ring. And ring. And ring.

  Finally, a voice answers, “Homicide.”

  “I’m looking for Sergeant Parks.”

  “He’s out. Leave a message?”

  “I’ll call back.”

  He clicks end, then presses the button to play his voice mail.

  “Mr. Armstrong, this is Sergeant Parks. I have meetings this morning, but if you are free this afternoon, I’d like to sit down and chat about your wife’s case. Please call me back and let me know if I can stop by your place. This is my cell.”

  Heart pounding, Zack writes the number on the flap of a torn envelope, then dials it from memory. One of his talents, long numbers stick with him as soon as he sees them written down. It makes him fun at parties, where he can recite Pi out through a hundred numbers.

  When he used to be fun, that is.

  “Parks.”

  “It’s Zack Armstrong. You called?” He sounds hopeful. He can’t help it; it has been so long since there’s been anything from the cops.

  “Right. You around after lunch? I’d like to sit down and talk.”

  “Have you found something?”

  “Not really, I just wanted to get briefed and up to speed on the case. I work a little differently than Gorman. I like to have my hands in things. Especially cold cases.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “Great. See you in a couple of hours, then.”

  What exquisite torture, Zack thinks, and sets about cleaning up the house.

  36

  At one on the dot, the doorbell chimes. Zack practically falls over Kat trying to get to the door. The dog has decided today is the day to start barking at strangers and parks herself dead center in the foyer.

  “What is wrong with you? Move.”

  She looks right at him, gives a final bark as if saying screw you, buddy, I’ll bark if I want, then falls silent and sits on her haunches, elegant nose in the air.

  He opens the door to a tall, dark-haired man with a thick mustache and a much smaller woman, reddish hair pulled back in a ponytail. They are both in plainclothes, though their weapons are visible on their hips. Ever the military man, even eighteen years removed, Zack identifies them by the butt, Glock 27s, and glances at their ankles, where he can see the slight bulge of ankle holsters. Four weapons, fifty-two rounds loaded between them. Bet the ranch they both have pepper spray on their belts, too. Knives, maybe. Extra magazines. On the surface, they look so benign, but he knows both are lethal.

  Satisfied with his assessment, he grabs Kat’s collar and gestures for them to come in.

  “Mr. Armstrong, I’m Sergeant Parks, and this is Detective Brianna Starr.”

  “Nice to meet you. Stay still for a moment. Kat doesn’t like weapons. She spent some time as a puppy training to uncover them. Don’t worry if she growls, she sees it as doing her job.”

  Zack releases the dog’s collar and Kat begins her inventory, professionally sniffing the strangers up and down, uttering short barks at waist and ankle.

  “She’s beautiful,” the detective says, careful not to move. The cop’s voice is low and smoky, not what he expects from someone so small. “What is she?”

  “A Belgian Malinois. It’s a herding breed.”

  “She was a working dog?”

  “No, she failed out. Too happy.”

  “But a dog named Cat? That seems almost cruel.”

  He laughs. “Kat with a K. Short for Katerina.”

  “Ah.”

  Kat finishes her sweep, sits back, satisfied, tongue lolling. Zack pats her on the head, says, “Good job, sweet girl,” then leads them to the living room.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “We’re fine, thanks,” Parks replies.

  They all sit, and silence stretches between them. Finally, Zack opens his hands expectantly. “You wanted to get updated?”

  “Right.” Parks smooths two fingers over his mustache, a nervous gesture that puts Zack on alert. “I took a pass through the files last night, and then I asked Detective Starr to pull everything together and get up to speed. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, sir, but we wanted to give things another once-over, and I’d like to assign Detective Starr to investigate. She’s had great successes with cold cases, and since there have been so many technologic
al updates recently, she and I agree it would be wise to take fresh DNA samples and get them into the system. It’s been a while, and I have to tell you when I looked last night, I didn’t see a profile for you in CODIS. Your wife, yes, but not you.”

  Zack’s entire body goes tense. “You want my DNA again? I was cleared.”

  “Nothing to worry about, sir,” Starr says. “If I’m going to reopen a case, it’s standard protocol for me to update all the files, and in this case, since you’re not in the system, I’d like to get fresh DNA input. You never know what might show up.”

  “What, like my missing daughter is some kind of teenage criminal mastermind, and you want to see if you can find her through the system?”

  She shakes her head, fighting back a smile. “Not at all, Mr. Armstrong. There’s nothing villainous here. Your DNA isn’t attached to the file anymore. Things get lost over time. It happens. It’s a long shot we’ll find a match, but I’d like to get you back into play, just in case. Okay?”

  Zack crosses his arms. “Continue.”

  “After I update your DNA, I’m going to update CODIS—the Combined DNA Index—and put the information into ViCAP—that’s our Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. These programs will look for DNA matches and any cases that are similar. I will go into deep specifics—weapon used, placement of the body, the missing infant, anything and everything I can add to the case to see if there’s a chance the suspect in your wife’s murder has committed another crime in the intervening years. I might even put the age progression of your daughter into the FBI’s NGI facial recognition database, just for kicks.”

  “Back up a second. You’re reopening the case?”

  “Not exactly. I’m going to do some legwork and see if anything pops. If it does, then we’ll reopen the case. Fair enough?”

  “Yes. Quite fair.”

  “Good. Now. Can you run me through the whole story? I’d like to hear everything, start to finish.”

  “The file—”

  She smiles. Her teeth are pretty. The smile makes her look sweet and innocent, and he knows she isn’t. Not by a long shot. Not after what she’s seen.