Jeremiah’s Revenge: A Liv Bergen Mystery

by Sandra Brannan

  His voice and thoughts trailed off.

  I wanted to throw up, but I forced back the bile that rose in my throat. I didn’t dare move.

  Minutes later, he straightened his spine and stood up. “Anyway, they say the funeral was nice. The other guys did everything they could to find Paula’s murderer. And I buried myself in my work after that. They wouldn’t let me be involved in anything regarding Paula’s case. Can’t say that I blame them for that.”

  “That’s how I met Tony Gates. He was the investigator at the time with the Denver PD.”

  “And now he’s Chief,” I said.

  He nodded. “He was good. He never doubted me. And he was the one who connected the dots to Coyote Cries and went after him as ferociously as I did after that. I was far too devastated emotionally about the whole thing—to the point of hysteria.”

  He looked straight at me. “I wasn’t right in the head for a while. You’re justified in warning me not to let him have power over me, Liv. He has before. I can’t let him now.”

  I nodded.

  “I mostly worked on helping build the arguments and gather the evidence against Coyote Cries in the other murder case on the reservation. It was a drug overdose case. The one that earned him his conviction. Drugs would also land him behind bars—but not for long. Not long enough, considering it was a first offense. So we focused on the murder. It was tough without our witness, June. She was the only one who saw Coyote Cries near the vic at the time of his death. We had a motive. But we had no concrete evidence that he’d killed the man or that it was premeditated. It was a tough case to win.”

  “I didn’t remember you saying that Coyote Cries was convicted of murder.” I was thinking about everything I’d read compared to what he’d told me, so I could keep my reactions to his news genuine.

  “He wasn’t. Based on the jury’s decision, we had to settle for the judge giving him the maximum penalty allowed for involuntary manslaughter, illegal possession, and drug trafficking convictions. Which was life with possibility of parole after twenty years.”

  “And for what he did to Paula? And June?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he answered flatly. “He got nothing; not even charges pressed against him.”

  He’d been so open with me. So willing to let go.

  I had a risky question that I feared might shut his progress down. But I had to ask. Especially after reading that damned letter.

  “If there was no evidence found, how were you and Tony so sure that Coyote Cries was the one who killed Paula and June?”

  His body stiffened.

  And he grew quiet.

  LAST NIGHT, OR RATHER, early this morning, I ruined the mood.

  After all this time, Streeter had finally uncorked his bottled demons throughout the night. And early this morning, I pushed too far.

  What an idiot.

  He immediately grabbed my hand and led me to bed, telling me he’d had enough and needed sleep. When I woke up around noon, he was already in the shower. He barely spoke to me all day as we took a long hike down the canyon, holding hands, thinking.

  Tonight, I would make it up to him.

  We sat on the deck, a blanket wrapped around both of us.

  “Streeter, we need to talk about it.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “I’m sorry about my question this morning. About how you could be so sure it was Coyote Cries who killed Paula and June. I think you misunderstood my question. I wasn’t doubting you. Believe me. I don’t. I know for sure that Coyote Cries murdered your wife. You couldn’t be more right about that. I just wanted to know how you and Tony knew it so long ago.”

  I stopped short of telling him about Dillinger’s letter. I needed him to tell his story his way, without interrupting, if I could get him talking again.

  “And it was probably a really stupid question. But you sounded so convinced. And I believe you. Please, don’t think I doubt you. Not for one minute.”

  From his profile, I could see the jaw muscles working against his angry thoughts.

  “Talk to me. Please.”

  He let out a breath that hung in the cold like a suspended balloon. “I suppose it was partially my fault. I approached it all wrong. I wasn’t myself when it came to issues regarding Paula. Like I said, I’d pretty much lost it. So we all agreed that I’d have nothing to do with Paula’s murder investigation. I blew up a few times at the guys handling the investigation for not finding anything. I said some pretty awful things about them.”

  “Understandable.” What I was really thinking was how impressed I’d been at his composure. From what I’d read, I’d have gone ape-shit on everyone around me if I were him.

  “Better for all of us that I focused my attentions elsewhere. So I immersed myself in another case, even though I had worked the drug overdose on the reservation, which involved Coyote Cries as a Top Ten fugitive.”

  I imagined he had to seriously compartmentalize his work from his life to accomplish what he had on that investigation.

  “I attended the sentencing but not the trial. I couldn’t bear that. I wasn’t even called as a witness, thank God.”

  “Which meant you did a great job providing evidence to the prosecuting attorney,” I offered.

  He shrugged. “When the judge announced a life sentence, I almost blacked out with relief. Just as they were about to take Coyote Cries from the courtroom, he leaned over to me and whispered, ‘I should have raped her before I killed her, but I don’t like white meat—especially pregnant white mean. Did you enjoy your carrots?’”

  I tried not to gasp aloud. This was exactly the way it was described in Dillinger’s letter. Proof of its authenticity.

  But it was brutal for anyone to hear. Let alone for Paula’s husband.

  I asked, “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. I just froze. I knew he was trying to tell me he had murdered my wife and had gotten away with it. The autopsy report had indicated she was pregnant. Twelve weeks. I didn’t know. She hadn’t told me.”

  So he had known—through a cold, callused autopsy report.

  A tear streamed down my cheek.

  He’d lost his wife and a baby he never knew he had.

  “I learned later that nobody knew Paula was pregnant—except her doctor who had seen her the day she was killed.” He turned toward me and leveled a stare. “That’s why I’m so convinced.”

  “There was no way for Coyote Cries to know she was pregnant unless she had told him before he killed her.” I had as much conviction as he had—and the letter to prove Coyote Cries’s admission to the murders.

  “And Tony Gates pointed out to me later that the carrots didn’t even show up in the police reports. Anywhere,” Streeter said. “That’s why he was so convinced. The only mention of the vegetable soup she’d been making was that a pot had nearly boiled dry by the time I came home. Tony surmised that she was bagging up the leftover carrots she’d used in the soup when Coyote Cries arrived. He’d used those details to help determine the time of death. She was killed only ten minutes or so before I came home.”

  I understood. “Only the killer would have known about the carrots.”

  The cold breeze through the trees of the early evening had quieted the birds outside. Fighting off the chill, he got up and pulled the glass door shut.

  Rubbing his upper arms with his hands, he added, “I shouldn’t have done it. After I got over the initial shock of his confession, I threw a punch at him. As the bailiff led him away, I lost complete control of myself in that courtroom. The guards had to pull me off him. I was yelling, ‘He killed my wife. The bastard killed my wife. And my child.’”

  “He provoked you,” I said.

  “I just kept shouting over and over. Everyone in the courtroom, including my boss, Sid Carter, thought I had finally gone off the deep end. Even the judge came back into the courtroom to see what the commotion was all about.”

  “You aren’t crazy. He was taunting you. He’s evil.”r />
  He wrapped his arms around his own waist. “Everyone assumed I’d had a nervous breakdown. They’d assumed with the stress of my wife’s brutal murder, the subsequent months of trial against this Top Ten fugitive, and the option for parole after twenty years that I just couldn’t handle it anymore. But I didn’t even hear the part about parole. They thought I’d gone mad, out of my mind.”

  “Streeter, anyone in your situation would have reacted the same way.”

  He nodded. “When I tried to explain what Coyote Cries had said, no one believed me, except Tony. When I told them that Coyote Cries knew about my wife being pregnant, some said it was because I had screamed that he’d killed my unborn child. Others said his lawyer had probably obtained the autopsy report.”

  “And the carrots? How’d they dismiss that?”

  “Some detectives suggested sour grapes on my part and desperation to place blame on someone for killing my wife. They argued that misplaced anger and blame were classic emotional stages of the grieving process.”

  “Don’t you hate how everyone tells you what grief is all about?” I asked.

  He offered me a crooked smile.

  Streeter gazed down at his shoes. “A few who believed me suggested that I had ruined my chances of making the charges stick against Coyote Cries by my outburst and by divulging confidential information about the murder in a crowded courtroom.”

  “Did he provoke you on purpose to prejudice a jury?” I wondered.

  “He’s smart enough to have done that. But we were never taking the other murders to trial anyway. The practical situation was that we had no evidence, no witnesses, and no murder weapon. Nothing had ever materialized, which made the other murder cases against him even weaker than the overdose trial, the manslaughter case we’d just completed. All we had was my word against his about what he’d said to me.”

  “And any defending attorney would have a heyday with that,” I said.

  “Not to mention with my credibility when it came to this issue. I had punched him and screamed at him in front of dozens of witnesses.”

  “You must’ve been devastated.” Rising to my feet, I approached Streeter and grabbed his hand. I led him to the window where the sun had completely set.

  “I was. And I have no doubt in my mind that Coyote Cries killed June Chase to avoid prison and that he murdered my wife to get back at me.”

  I draped my arms around his neck and leaned against his shoulder.

  “The worst part about the whole thing for me was the torture Paula must have gone through before she was killed.”

  I stiffened. No way could I ever share Dillinger’s letter with him.

  “Death is quick the way he killed her. But the autopsy report indicated that Paula had been sweating before she died—and worse, crying. The report said that her cheeks and neck were ‘streaked with saline excrement.’ With tears. I wonder what he’d done to frighten her so badly.”

  “As much as she loved you, it was probably the fear of knowing what you would go through when you found her,” I said simply. “She loved you. And knowing how tortured you would be was probably terrifying for her. The same horror that’s consuming you over me.”

  Streeter tilted his head curiously. “I guess I never thought about it like that. I’d always assumed he’d hurt her somehow. She had a broken bone in her wrist and an odd bruise on her shoulder and on her back. I just assumed she was crying because of that.”

  I shook my head. “There are worse pains than broken bones and bruises. You of all people should know that.”

  He stared at me for a long time. “Thank you for that.”

  I assumed he meant for giving him something else to think about other than the physical pain she must have been feeling.

  “Obviously, I never forgave myself for letting Paula down that night … If I’d only come home ten minutes earlier.”

  “You’d both be dead. Like I said, no way Paula would’ve wanted that. You can’t think like that. You can’t blame yourself.”

  “Easy to say, hard to do. I can’t help but blame myself. He was getting back at me. I was late coming home. Maybe he was laying low for me that night, and Paula came home first.”

  “And if you had, Paula would be going through the same torture you’ve been living with for the past twenty years.”

  “At least she’d be alive—with my child. Maybe if I’d come home earlier, I could’ve stopped the whole thing from happening. Maybe if I hadn’t lost my cool in the courtroom, we could’ve convicted the bastard. Maybe—”

  “Hush,” I whispered holding my finger against his lips.

  “But maybe I could have—”

  “Stop. You can’t keep torturing yourself with what could’ve been. That won’t solve anything for you. And you can’t possibly springboard into any kind of future by wallowing in what could’ve been. Don’t give that thug so much power over you, Streeter.”

  “I loved her so much,” he said, averting his eyes.

  “I know you did. But she wouldn’t want you to die of a broken heart. Roger had a massive heart attack from the guilt and remorse he harbored over June Chase. Both of you went through something more tragic and more horrific than any human being should ever have to endure. I can’t imagine a greater burden.”

  He nodded. Glanced up at me.

  I offered him a kind smile. “But you can’t make that burden heavier with the guilt and remorse you continue to pile on yourself. You’ll be crushed by the weight of it all. You can’t end up like Roger. Suffering a massive heart attack.”

  “And now, he’s so … jaded about everything.”

  “Paula wouldn’t have wanted that for you. You have to live for what’s now.”

  I leaned over and kissed him gently on the corner of his mouth.

  “This lunatic is up for parole. If they let him out, I am seriously concerned about your life,” Streeter said sternly.

  I didn’t want to argue that the parole board wouldn’t let Coyote Cries go. They had. So I had to think quickly. “Why would he come after me? He punished you twenty years ago, Streeter. Wasn’t that enough? Why would he want more? What could he possibly gain from that?”

  He stared at me for a long moment. His blue eyes were flat with weariness. The lines of concern around his eyes had deepened. “I couldn’t bear to lose you. I couldn’t take that chance. I won’t take that chance.”

  He released my hand and walked out on the porch through the sliding glass doors. I followed him outside.

  “I saw the look in his eyes when I punched him. It isn’t over. He will come for me—with vengeance.”

  I sidled up beside him. “Maybe so. But even if he’s been harboring a vendetta for you, which is highly unlikely after all this time, you’re prepared. Right?”

  Streeter nodded reluctantly. Then his eyes filled with fury. “But I can’t protect you—even when he’s behind bars. He’s already gotten to me by hurting you through Chavez.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do. And on Tuesday, I’ll know for sure. He’ll tell me. When I look him in his eyes, I will know if he has changed after all these years—at his parole hearing.”

  “Then stop worrying,” I scolded. “I’ve remembered a quote from the book of Luke ever since I was young, because worry had a hold on me even back then. It was something like, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit to prosper.’ Something like that.”

  His expression changed. He stared at me as if a light bulb turned on inside his mind. I wondered why that quote mattered to him that much: I’d been grasping at straws for anything that might encourage him, strike a chord.

  “Luke. A book in the Bible. Isn’t there a book of Jeremiah?”

  I nodded and added, “So the passage by Luke makes sense. It’s hard to keep driving forward if you’re always looking in a rearview mirror. And Streeter, that’s what you’re doing. Don’t let fear of him sneaking up from behind stop you from moving forward. Understand?” />
  But I’d lost him. He’d excused himself abruptly to make a phone call. Something I said must’ve triggered his reaction. But I had no clue what it was.

  When he returned, he was grinning, happy, a different man. He lifted me into his arms and kissed the top of my head. “I love you so much, Liv. You are my only weakness and my only strength.”

  I kissed him back. “You can’t kick me out of here tonight, if that’s what you’re thinking. I ordered the full weekend kidnapping, not just the 24-hour bit.”

  And that was the last time we ever spoke about Coyote Cries again.

  STREETER HADN’T BEEN ABLE to sleep that night.

  He lay beside Liv with his arm beneath her head and stared at her in the moonlight as she slept. Her silky auburn hair glistened against the crisp white pillowcase. Her gentle purr, barely audible, rose and fell like the distant sound of waves steadily washing ashore.

  Her soft, white skin glowed. He couldn’t resist the urge to stroke her arms gently as she slept. He lay there all night studying her and watching her sleep. He imagined what it would be like if they were married and if it would always be this peaceful for him.

  As the darkness of night began to recede in the early hours of morning, he’d rehearsed at least two dozen versions of what he might say at Coyote Cries’s hearing tomorrow. The hearing was scheduled for nine o’clock, which meant Streeter would have to leave his house by seven.

  And he wanted so badly to go into work this morning to follow up on the lead Liv had inspired him with. He thought about the passage from Luke, about the rumored preacher who’d been terrorizing the residents of Pine Ridge, and about the book of Jeremiah.

  He didn’t want to awaken her. He didn’t want his time with her to end. He’d enjoyed spending the past few nights with her, holding her, listening to her sleeping. He knew that he had to do anything he could to make sure she was safe and protected.

  That meant keeping Coyote Cries behind bars.

  He had to be persuasive, convincing, with just the right amount of emotion. He had to stay controlled and professional, regardless of the impact of seeing Coyote Cries after all these years. Just receiving the letter notifying him of the parole hearing had made him regurgitate.