If Dad lost it again, I couldn’t bear to watch my sisters’ hearts getting ripped out all over again. Not to mention, being that I was the glue keeping Dad connected to them for so many years, I didn’t want them mad at me for defending him for all those years. And, honestly, Kelly deserved better.
Don’t get me wrong, Kelly and Dad loved each other. I’ve watched them for the last several years. She’s given up a lot to be with him, yet she’s never shown any struggle with it.
He refused to have any more children, too afraid of relapsing and having more children taken away from him. And she was plenty young enough to still have plenty of children when she and Dad first got together. Sometimes I wonder if she regrets giving up having kids, especially since she didn’t have any interaction with any of us until we were grown.
And then to go years with no kids, to suddenly having two college girls living there and me floating in and out? Although, getting two of his kids back under his roof is what seemed to really kick his confidence into gear enough to marry her. Not to mention the age difference, she’s going to have to watch Dad grow old about a decade ahead of her. She doesn’t deserve to be married to a man who remains the prime suspect of so many murders.
On the other hand, he treats her like queen, giving her more than she wants, plenty of praise, and he goes out of his way to take care of her. I could only hope all of that was enough to counterbalance any setbacks he may have in the future.
I’m not even sure why I worry so much. He hasn’t seemed to slip up in the last ten years, but then again, he was never one to show you his shortcomings, either. He was one to hide away, doing his best to implode in private.
Maybe… maybe Kelly was what was keeping him on the straight and narrow this past decade. I mean, Dad was fine for as long as Mom was around. Maybe it was accountability that he needed in his home. Not a kid or mother-in-law or mere employee, but someone who loved and cared about him, as a peer and true partner. Someone for him to fight with his sanity for.
“You going for the granddaddy?”
I actually jumped in my seat, Dale startling me so thoroughly out of my thoughts. “Uh, yeah,” I said, turning to him. “Was there ever any doubt?”
He pursed his lips together and moved to sit at the table, with a sigh. “Are you sure you want to dig into this?”
I only hesitated a second or two before answering. “I am.”
He nodded to himself. “Did you talk about it with your Dad?”
“I discussed the possibility of it with him, yes.”
“And how does he feel about it?”
“He gave me his blessing.”
His look was rueful as he tilted his head to the side. “Penny…”
I let out a breath. “You don’t want me to dig.”
“No, it’s that if you go digging, I’m reasonably sure you’re going to dig up things you’re going to regret.”
I shook my head. “They only accused him because they had no other leads. Period. They had nothing else on him but the one incident. The pattern of murders didn’t fit his location or timing. The same gun had been used in all of the other murders, and the one in his possession did not match. They tried to pin it all on him, and failed.”
Dale was quiet for a moment. “Penny, you also have a past history with alcoholics.”
I didn’t even blink. “This guy was a murderer, plain and simple. Yes, I get your concern. But it’s not my job to judge, it’s just my job to bring in the guilty party and put him or her before a judge. That’s it.”
Dale regarded me for a moment. “Can I tempt you with a lead in another unsolved case?”
My eyebrow raised at that. “New lead? Is the case big enough to count for my promotion, without pairing it with another?”
He nodded.
“I’m listening.”
“There are a couple dozen or so unsolved cases of stolen cars within a half-hour radius, and we just had another last night.”
“And the new robbery is the lead?”
Dale nodded.
“We’re now thinking that they’re all related?”
“Well, they’re all stolen with an individual sense of style, but they do tend to happen every six to eight months.”
“Someone supplementing their income with a little grand theft auto on the side.”
“No one has sat down with the files and looked for consistencies, yet. If you don’t do it, it’s a thought valid enough that I’ll assign it to a detective.”
“Is this your way of keeping me away from a case you think I’m too close to, personally?”
Dale leaned forward in his chair. “Are you willing to risk finding out your father was the Driveway Shooter? Are you willing to turn him in, or would you risk your entire career to keep quiet about it? If you don’t know the answers to those questions, then I suggest you take on the cars.”
I pressed my fingers into a temple.
“Twenty to thirty unsolved cases solved in one felled swoop. Imagine taking that to the commissioner. How could he say no to your promotion then?”
I dropped my hand and met his gaze. “You could just forbid me from touching the case, because I’m too close to it.”
“And take the officer closest to the prime suspect off the scent? No. But I do care about how it would affect you, personally. I think it’s in your best personal interests to work on the cars and see if they fit together.”
“Why even tell me about the murders, if you didn’t want me on it?”
“Because I didn’t want you talking to someone else and have them ask you why you weren’t going after the bigger mystery. These cars being possibly connected didn’t come to light until today when we got the call for the latest one, and someone put together the pattern on the timing.”
I let out a sigh. “Give me what you’ve got on the cars.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Some Skeletons Get Quite Dusty
“Caucasian male, wearing a leather jacket and dark hat, mid-forties to mid-fifties. That’s it, that’s all I’ve got for a description.”
“Mid-forties in the earlier car thefts, and mid-fifties in the later ones?” Dale asked.
I nodded.
“There you go.”
“They’re also all luxury vehicles.”
“A connoisseur,” he teased.
“He’s after a certain price point.”
“Zero of them have ever been recovered. Where’s he taking them?”
“He’s got to have connections, within a network.”
“If he’s only doing this once or twice a year, then how is he keeping up with all the security protocols built into these vehicles?”
“He’s got connections running down both sides.” I lifted the lid on my laptop, opened a blank document, and started typing in ideas.
Dale nodded. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Those pants make you look fat,” Charlotte said.
Sophie dropped her gaze from the mirror, to her waist, “What?” She looked over at me, “Penny?”
I tried not to grin. “It’s not your waist, it’s your ass. Charlotte’s right, they’re not flattering.”
Sophie turned and tried to crane her neck to see her butt in the mirror. “Oh, my God!”
Charlotte and I smiled at each other and tried not to laugh.
“This is exactly why I don’t clothes shop by myself,” Sophie muttered, moving back into the dressing stall.
“You getting close to that promotion?” Charlotte asked as Sophie continued to mutter to herself. “Dad said you had to solve a cold case?”
I lifted my arms above my head and stretched in the folding chair. “Yeah. They don’t have any detective openings, so I have to prove I’m deserving.”
“But isn’t solving cold cases something you do after the promotion?”
“I’m to consider it an audition.”
Charlotte was going to say something, but hearing the dressing stall door open drew our attention.
<
br /> “No!” we both called out.
Sophie halted, wide-eyed. “Damn. Am I allowed to look in a mirror?”
“Yellow looks horrible on you,” Charlotte said.
“It washes you out,” I told her, watching her go to the mirror, trying to see what we were seeing.
“But the blouse looks so cute with the jeans,” Sophie said.
I got up and held her arm out for her own inspection, “Yes, honey, but we aren’t the right shade of white to wear that shade of yellow.”
“What about when I tan, in the summer?”
Charlotte cocked an eyebrow, “When do you tan in the summer?”
I fought off a smile. “It’s really not going to look any better with a sunburn, either.”
She sighed and headed back to the stall.
“So, what case do you have to solve?” Charlotte asked me as I sat back down.
“Not the one I wanted to,” I muttered.
“Why not?”
“Because a lead came in, and they want me to work on a different one, instead.”
“Will solving that case get you the promotion?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why aren’t you happy about it? They’re handing you a cold case with a fresh lead, that’s got to be better than sifting through file after file, hoping to find something solvable.”
“It is, I just… I wanted to solve a particular one.”
“Why? What was so special about the one case?”
I looked down at the floor in hesitation. I heard the stall door open and Sophie’s feet appeared in my line of vision. “Double-homicide?” she asked.
I startled and looked up into her eyes. “No. Serial killer.”
“Ah.”
“Soph, you look stunning,” Charlotte breathed.
I broke our stare and took a real look at her. “She’s right, Soph, you look gorgeous in that.”
Sophie moved to the mirrors. The peacock blue dress fell to just above her knees, and flattered every curve she had. “I feel naked.”
Charlotte scoffed. “It has capped sleeves and a scooped neckline that doesn’t even show any cleavage. It’s more modest than some of the other stuff you wear.”
“Really?” Sophie asked.
I nodded. “Really. It’s just that this cut and color both suit you well. It almost matches your eyes. And you remind me a lot of Mom, right now.”
“That’s a dress that can get you laid,” Charlotte said.
Sophie’s eyes flew to mine.
I got up and went to her, smoothing a lock of hair behind her ear. “Just because you can get laid doesn’t mean you have to.”
“I can’t wear this on a first date,” she rushed out.
“Well, if you want to turn the guy off completely, you can put that yellow blouse back on,” Charlotte muttered.
“Ignore her,” I told Sophie.
“Ugh!” Charlotte exclaimed and left the dressing area.
Sophie turned back to the mirror. “This is exactly why I stick to t-shirts and jeans.”
“And you still get asked out, anyway.”
She looked at me in the mirror and snorted.
I squeezed her shoulders and met her gaze in the mirror. “What made you say yes to this one, when he asked you out?”
“Because we’ve been friends for a couple of years, and when he asked me out, I felt butterflies in my stomach.” Her gaze dropped shyly, “I’ve never felt butterflies like that in my whole life.”
I smiled encouragingly when she peeked up at me to see my reaction. “Then buy this dress and save it for when the time is right.”
Worry furrowed her brow. “What if I never feel like the time is right?”
“Aw, honey. That sounds like a question for your therapist.”
She cut her gaze back to herself in the dress. “I asked her. She said at some point, a man will come along, and make me want to get close to him.”
“And when that happens?”
“She said to tell her, and she’ll help me navigate my feelings through it. And…” she let out a sigh, “I’m going to have to give him fair warning and let him know what happened to me, in case I panic and want to back out. I wouldn’t want him to think it’s him.”
I drew my lips into a grim line as she turned in the mirror, thinking to check her backside out after the last ass debacle.
“Was the guy who raped you all those times killed in a double-homicide?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to investigate it? Because I can. I can work on what they want me to and that one.”
She turned to face me. “No. Leave it alone. I absolutely do not want the man who made my suffering end to be punished for it.”
“What about the other person that was killed?”
“He was a horrible human being, too.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know. The person responsible did this family nothing but favors.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Soph, do you know who killed your abuser?”
Sophie met my gaze. “As an officer, I’m going to tell you that I have absolutely zero proof, and anything I say would only be a matter of my opinion. As my sister, I’m going to tell you that, yes, I do. I know exactly who killed that guy. And as your sister, I’m telling you to leave it the hell alone.”
“Sophie…”
“Leave. It. Alone.”
“I didn’t know about your sexual abuse until long after he died.”
“I know.”
My head tilted even further. “Did Dad have any contact with you, back then? Did you tell him what was going on?”
Her jaw set stubbornly as she turned back to the mirror. “What do you think about adding a brown leather belt to this?”
“Soph, just between you and me, do you think Dad killed him?”
Her gaze found mine in the mirror again. “No.”
I felt tension I didn’t even know I was carrying in my shoulders relax.
“I think he hired a hit man to do it.”
My shoulders tensed right back up. “So, you did have contact?”
She nodded. “I saw him outside of my school, one time. I didn’t know if I was going to see him again. I told him what was going on, and within a couple weeks, Todd was dead, and I was safe. Other than that, he’d check in with me once a year, right around my birthday.”
“But you said the other victim was bad, too. How do you know that?”
“Because the social worker let it slip that the other person there that night was Charlotte’s former foster father.”
“The one that hit her?!”
“Shhh! Yes. Okay?”
“How the hell did the killer get them together?”
“Because they worked next door to each other. I found out through my foster parents that the police thought the guy targeted one of them, and the other witnessed it, causing him to become the next victim.”
“Oh, my God. That must have been what Dad was talking about.”
“What?”
I had to shake my head. “When Dad went into treatment for five years, it wasn’t totally because he relapsed into depression.”
She turned back to me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, he snapped alright, he fished around outside a bar and followed a drunk driver home. Police caught him pulling out his gun and taking aim. He was going to kill that drunk driver. He did five years for attempted murder. He’s still on parole for it.”
“So, he didn’t do therapy?”
“He was placed in a mental institution for criminals. He had five years of very intense therapy.”
“And he’s been fine, ever since.”
“But what if finding out what was happening to two of his daughters was enough to make him temporarily snap again?”
“Was he a suspect?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know all the details, just that they questioned him for a crime and he had an alibi. He only told me that becau
se I was going to work on the case of the Driveway Shooter.”
“The what?”
“Okay, we were all just kids. After Mom was killed, and before Dad went away for those five years, there was somebody tailing and killing drunk drivers in their driveways. Then Dad pulled his stunt, and they suspected it was him. Now, they tried to prove that he was the one, but they couldn’t. Dad hadn’t followed the same pattern, didn’t have the same gun, and was in the wrong location. So, they labelled him a bumbling copycat.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. And when I went to Dad, to get his approval to work on the case, he thought I had read his whole file. When I told him I only read what was pertinent to the case, he warned me that I might come across the fact that he was a suspect in another murder case.” I shook my head. “He must have meant your abuser’s double murder.”
Sophie nodded. “I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t be a suspect, once they put together the connection between the two guys, especially with a history of attempted murder.”
“He said he wasn’t too proud of his alibi for that night, either. But it must have been enough to clear him of suspicion.”
“But they wouldn’t have known that he’d had contact with the three of us, to varying degrees.”
“Oh, man.”
“Isn’t there a Statute of Limitations?”
“Not on murder.”
“I don’t want the killer punished.”
“But Todd’s parents would.”
“Only because they don’t know what he was really like!”
“True.”
“Okay. Enough. Remember, this was a conversation between two sisters, nothing more. And nothing we’ve said bears any proof of anything.”
I nodded thoughtfully.
“Penny…”
I looked at her. “You’re right, it proves nothing. This is just hearsay and speculation.”
Sophie looked like she wanted to say more, but Charlotte burst back into the dressing area, flinging clothes around. “Jewel tones,” she declared.
Sophie’s mouth dropped open, but Charlotte ignored it, lifting one piece up after another, “Emerald, sapphire, a deep purple, ruby, and black. Your wardrobe could seriously use some black in it. Deep, rich colors. That’s what you need to be wearing. If I see you wear one more pastel, I’m going to puke.”
We're All Broken Page 19
