by A B Whelan
The living room is a big bright space overstuffed with furniture and decoration. Mr. Falcone is sitting alone on the couch, torn with grief. He is a short white male with a shiny bald head and a belt of brown hair around the back of his head. A bushy dark mustache perched over his upper lip is dripping with tears.
“Mr. Falcone,” calls out the sheriff’s deputy. “Detective David Brown from the San Diego County’s Sheriff Department and Special Agent Vicky Collins with the FBI are here to speak with you.”
The grieving father reaches for his glasses on the table, puts them on, and looks at me. “The FBI?”
Since he has engaged with me and, well, it’s true men tend to react more to female empathy, I sit beside him and take the lead. “Please accept my deepest condolences. I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” the man says, dabbing at his eyes underneath his glasses with a Kleenex.
“I know that the news is still fresh, and I can only imagine the pain you are going through right now, but we have a few questions regarding your daughter’s whereabouts and friends. We’d deeply appreciate it if you could help us.”
The man pursues his lips, bobbing his head slightly. Agony is written all over his face. There is no doubt in my mind that the death of his daughter killed a part of him.
“Earlier today, Detective Brown and I talked to one of Meredith’s colleagues at the Black Panther, and she mentioned an alarming event that took place sometime back in May. The story we heard was that your daughter had a falling out with a stranger at a bar. Meredith’s friend couldn’t tell us the name of the establishment or when exactly the incident occurred, but it was serious enough for Meredith to fear for her safety. We were told that on that particular night, she drove here and stayed the night. Do you recall any of this?”
The man looks at me with glossy eyes like marbles, long and silent, as if ransacking his brain for that specific memory. “Yes, I do remember that night. Merri showed up at the house around four in the morning. I remember because she almost gave me a heart attack with her knocking. She was rattled and definitely scared. She thought someone was following her, but I didn’t see anybody on the street.”
“Did she perhaps give you a description of the person or the car that followed her?”
Mr. Falcone shakes his head, then breaks into a fit of crying. “I should have let her move back home. She asked for my help, but I said it was time for her to stand on her own two feet.”
I put my hand on the man’s back, exchanging silent glances with Brown, who was sitting on the recliner underneath a white statue of Jesus with open arms, showing the wounds from the crucifixion on his palms.
“This isn’t your fault, Mr. Falcone. We do all that we can to protect the ones we love, but sometimes, no matter what we do, terrible things happen,” I say, handing him a clean tissue from the box on the table.
Mr. Falcone sniffles and blows his nose. “She was a good girl, you know? ‘A’s and ‘B’s all throughout high school. She ran track and played volleyball. Then she met that boy, that good-for-nothing hooligan, Nikko Gonzalez. Everything went to hell after that.”
“Mr. Gonzalez is the father of Meredith’s daughter, Jessica,” Brown informs me.
“Oh, God, how do we tell Jess that her mommy has gone to heaven?” Mr. Falcone cries out. “Maybe if I was nicer to Nikko, they would’ve stayed together. Maybe if we had welcomed him into the family, he would’ve treated my sweet Merri better.” He looks up at me with tearful eyes. “He broke her heart, you know? She was never the same after their breakup. She spent the rest of her life trying to prove to herself that she was worthy of love. That’s why she danced. She wanted the attention, you know?”
I glance up at the face of Jesus. I was raised Catholic, but I haven’t been to church since I left home. I remember the words of the priest from Susie’s funeral. That’s all I’m able to offer to this grieving father at the moment. “God is with her, Mr. Falcone. God loves your daughter. I’m sure she is in a better place right now.”
His swollen, red fingers squeeze my hand. “Thank you,” Mr. Falcone whispers. “Thank you for saying that.”
The broken man looks somewhat composed now and focused.
“I want you to catch the bastard that did this to my daughter.” Mr. Falcone makes his point by looking at each one of us in the eyes.
“We’ll do everything we can to apprehend the person responsible,” promises Brown.
“Mr. Falcone,” I ask. “Do you suspect Mr. Gonzales of hurting your daughter?”
The man sighs. “I don’t know. He hasn’t been a part of her life these past ten years, not since Jessica was born. That scumbag doesn’t even pay child support.”
“Would he benefit somehow from the death of your daughter?”
My words sink in too fast. A ripple of apprehension runs down the man’s face, and his head drops into his hands again. He shakes his head no and starts rolling a rosary between his fingers as tears gather in his eyes. “I should have let her move back home.”
His mind seems to slip in and out of focus. I give him a minute to gather himself, then continue, “Did your daughter share any details about the man that harassed her in the bar back in May?”
“Oh, yeah …” He’s with us once again. “Erm, no, she didn’t. I’m sorry. I wish she had. It was very early in the morning. We didn’t talk much. She went to bed, and I did the same.” Every word he utters seems to pain him. Maybe it’s better if I never have children.
“Do you think Meredith talked to your wife about that night?” Brown asks.
Mr. Falcone scratches his forehead. He wants to help us, but it’s evident he wants to be left alone with his grieving.
“I don’t think so. Merri was up early, grabbed Jessica, and left. She even left her leather jacket she wore that night. She said the guy spat on it and she didn’t want it anymore.”
I don’t think I heard him right. My eyes snap to Brown. His face is lit with excitement.
“Do you still have the jacket in your possession?” I repeat the question to confirm what I heard.
“Yes. My wife hung it in Merri’s closet. We kept forgetting to give it to her, and Merri never asked for it back.”
“Sir, may we have that jacket?”
“Certainly.” Mr. Falcone presses down on his thighs to push himself up. “Let me get if for you.”
Meredith’s room is now Jessica’s room. The ten-year-old girl lies on the bed playing with her phone a pair of AirPods poking from her ears. She must be listening to music because our intrusion doesn’t alarm her.
Her grandpa touches her ankle. The girl jumps. “What the hell? You scared the shit out of me!”
“Watch your mouth, Jess!” Mr. Falcone snaps, blushing. “She has a little behavior problem,” he tells us in a mere whisper.
“Whatever,” the girl groans and rolls to her other side.
A moment of uncomfortable silence follows as Mr. Falcone removes a rusty-red leather jacket from the closet. Brown leans in to take the curved metal head of the hanger from him. A deputy is right behind us with an oversized evidence bag, and Brown carefully lowers the garment into it.
We thank Mr. Falcone for his cooperation and return to the car.
“Do you think the lab rats will have enough saliva to establish a DNA profile?” Brown asks.
“I don’t know, but if they do, we’re nailing this son of a bitch.”
23
Brestler books rooms for us at the Fairfield Inn in the heart of San Marcos, not far from the crime scene. Our unit is on a tight budget, so Anaya and I volunteer to share a room.
After we check in, I let Anaya settle in the room first. I take a seat on a leather loveseat near the reception to stay out of the heat and call Doug to hear how the convention is going. He answers his phone after the second ring, which takes me by surprise. He says he’s in his room. The TV chatter in the background verifies his story.
“Are you going out?” I ask unneces
sarily. Of course, he’s going out! Why do I even ask?
“Not tonight, I’m spent. Oh man, Vicky, today was amazing,” he gushes. “We had over two hundred people in the room. Many of them were standing in the back because we didn’t have enough chairs. They were all there to hear me talk about how I built my social-media platform for business. It was unbelievable! Freaking mind-blowing!”
“I’m so proud of you, Doug. Look how far you’ve come.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you. I owe you big time, Vic. Don’t ever forget that.”
Ethan calls me Vic, so it’s strange to hear it from Doug.
“I only assisted. You did the heavy lifting.”
Doug laughs heartily. “Oh, Vicky, I miss you. I wish you were here to see all those people. I nailed it. I n.a.i.l.e.d. it!”
“I knew you would.”
“Enough about me. Are you back home?”
“No,” I sigh. “I’m stuck in San Marcos. We got a break, so we might have a lead. If not, I’ll be here for a while.”
“No worries. Hey, babe, I gotta go. Ethan ordered us room service, and the waiter is at the door. We’re too tired to go out to eat.”
“Sounds lovely. Enjoy. I’ll see you back home.”
My loneliness and heartache keep me sitting for a long time. As strange as it sounds, I want to be with Doug in that hotel room, ordering room service. I imagine putting on a soft white bathrobe and lying on the bed with my boyfriend, watching Impractical Jokers on TruTV. We’d eat steak and wash our dinner down with champagne. I want Doug to make love to me and afterward get in the shower with me. I want to laugh and act silly. I want to let loose and enjoy our relationship. I want to live my life a little. But that’s not happening tonight. Duty calls.
Anaya is in the bathroom when I enter the room. I hear water pelting against the tile. She is singing. I wish I knew what perked her up. I could use some of the same medicine.
I sit down at the end of the bed and turn on the TV. I flip through the channels, but nothing catches my interest.
“Oh, you’re back. Good,” Anaya calls out. “You want to grab some chow with Brestler and me?”
She says this as if they were a couple.
“Sure. Why not?” I attempt to smile.
Anaya rolls her wet hair into a towel turban and sits beside me. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be happy about the saliva sample.”
“I am. It’s … nothing, really. It’s just …” I take a deep breath. “I talked to Doug. He’s up in Irvine with Ethan at a realtor convention. He’s one of the keynote speakers. It’s a big moment for him, and I’m missing it, as always.”
Anaya tosses her arm over me. “Then drive up there and surprise him!”
“It’s over an hour’s drive.”
“Who cares? That’s nothing.” Anaya grabs her phone from the nightstand and checks traffic on Google Maps. “Look, it’s smooth sailing.”
Gazing at the digital map, I let the idea marinate for a second. I’ve never surprised Doug before, but maybe it’s the spice we need in our relationship. Spontaneity.
“Do you think I should?”
“Look, Vicky. You work hard. You are dedicated to the Bureau, but don’t let your work consume your life. It’s only a job. Go! See Doug.”
A rush of excitement bubbles up inside me. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”
Anaya waves her hand back. “We can hold down the fort until you get back. The girl is dead and there nothing we can do to bring her back.”
I jump up from the bed and start peeling off my clothes to get in the shower. “But if that girl, Lyric, calls from the Black Panther, I want to know about it! Also, if you hear anything from the lab—”
“It’s late. We won’t hear anything new till mornings,” she interrupts my babbling. “But if there’s any new development, I’ll call you right away. I promise.”
Guilt, mixed with anticipation, coils inside me as I wash up. I can’t stop convincing myself that this is a bad idea. But I’m on a roll, so let’s go.
Anaya lends me her car, and I’m on the road by 21:30.
The traffic has died down, as Anaya predicated it, and I practically fly up on the freeway to Irvine.
I stop at a 7-11 to pick up a bottle of champagne, then continue on to Doug’s hotel.
It takes a little persuasion and FBI badge power to persuade the concierge to give me a key to Doug’s room.
When I open the door, the first thing I notice is the sweet fragrance of burning candles, and my heart begins to race at once. I lower the bottle of champagne in my hand and move toward the flickering light cast on the wall by the candles.
An eruption of sexual moaning stops my heart. I’m paralyzed. My feet won’t move. I want to run away before I see something that can’t be unseen, but my curiosity won’t let me.
I set the bottle on a table by the bathroom door, touch my Glock to make sure I have it with me and flip on the light switch. I round the corner quickly to get a view of the bed. If one of those bitches from Doug’s Instagram posts is in bed with him, I swear to God, I’ll claw the bimbo’s eyes out!
The brightness from the overhead lights spills onto two mounds beneath white sheets on the bed.
“Doug!” I shudder at the weakness of my voice that’s not more than a yelp.
The bodies freeze, pretending not to be there.
“Doug?” I call out, somewhat more confident.
My nose twitches and tears are beginning to well in my eyes.
The sheet lifts and Doug’s tousled head emerges. “What are you doing here?”
His face is void of color, completely white. His pale lips quiver. I think he’s shaking, but it might be me.
“Who is under the blanket?” I ask breathlessly.
“It’s nobody,” Doug whispers.
I pull out my gun, grasping it with both hands, and level it at my boyfriend’s head.
“Who the fuck is under the blanket, Doug?” I shout, trembling with anger.
The cover slowly slips down. At the sight of the person that my eyes behold, my knees buckle, and my finger arches over the trigger.
It’s Ethan. It’s butt-naked, fucking Ethan. In bed with my boyfriend.
24
The strength is draining from my arms as I aim my gun with both hands at Doug’s heart, my finger releasing off the trigger. Doug puts his hand up as a barricade to protect himself. My eyes go in and out of focus of his white palm. I make out every line and ridge running down from his fingers. His lifeline is short and ends with a cluster of downward branching lines, like tassels. I know the patterns on Doug’s palm well. I harbor sweet memories of nights when we drank and laughed, reading each other’s fortune from the palms of our hands. Neither of us believed in that foolish hocus-pocus, but it was fun to make up stories about how our lives might turn out or how they would end. Based on Doug’s short lifeline, he was destined to die at a relatively young age. Maybe in a car accident or from an unknown virus that doctors wouldn’t be able to identify. I’d be by his bedside, supporting him through the hardship because this is who I am: a loyal dog.
We no longer have to speculate about the future. Doug’s future is here. He will die at a young age from a gunshot wound to the chest.
As the past and present mangle in my mind, I become disoriented, having an out-of-body experience. My trigger finger cramps and I lose control of it. My mind is telling me to turn and run, but a mixture of hate and disgust is burning me inside. It’s too painful to move.
Doug rolls onto his knees, keeping his hand up. “Vicky, please put the gun down,” he says in a voice designed to soothe.
My lying-piece-of-shit boyfriend’s effort to defuse the situation does not work on me. I’m dumbfounded and stark-raving mad from this betrayal. I’ve never felt so humiliated and hurt in my entire life. I find myself stooping so low emotionally that I wish it were one of his lady friends from the office he was screwing—or even three of them. But not another
man. Not Ethan.
Why? The question bounces around in my skull. Why?
“It’s not what it seems.” Doug attempts to defuse the tension in the room, but I can’t take him seriously with his nipples poking at me. “I can explain.”
I blink to get rid of the tears in my eyes and regain my vision. “Oh, please do explain. I’d love to hear you talk yourself out of this one.”
“I’m not gay,” Ethan says as if it was his turn to talk.
My jaws clench. “Nobody asked you!” I can’t even look at him or acknowledge his presence in the room. He is—was—my friend. He kissed me only yesterday. How stupid I am for not recognizing his romantic advances toward me as an act—a ploy to detach me emotionally from my boyfriend, so Ethan can have him to himself.
Ethan is a monster! He’s destroyed everything Doug and I have built for the past decade. If my father were here … Why am I bringing my father into this? He is another lying, cheating, sack of shit.
There is no winning for women in a relationship.
If we stay at home to raise children and keep the household and get a little too comfortable and fat in the process, then we’re deemed as money-sucking leeches who also lost their sex appeal. So, men think it’s okay to cheat to feel the excitement again.
If we work and let nannies raise our children and keep our home in order, then we’re condemned for not caring enough about our husbands and kids. So, men think it’s okay to cheat to get more attention.
If we make more money than our husband, then we are accused of being patronizing. So, men think it’s okay to cheat to feel better about themselves.
If we make less, then we’re criticized for not earning more, and on, and on, and on. There is no escape this catch-22.
