The Death of Life (The Little Things That Kill Series, #2)

by Pamela Crane

  “Or maybe the killer is just assuming things,” I wondered aloud. “Since my dad’s name was printed in the paper alongside George Battan’s in connection to Marla’s murder, maybe that’s why the killer targeted him. But we don’t even know that my father was a part of that. I don’t think he is. If this same killer attacked my dad, then he’s not doing his due diligence. I want to help you find the son of a bitch.”

  Whoever it was that had assaulted my father, putting him in a coma. It was personal now and I had a vendetta to wage.

  “Hell no, Ari. We’re dealing with a man who has killed two men and nearly killed your father. I’m not letting you anywhere near this case.”

  “What makes you think it’s a man?”

  “Because these men were overpowered. Even though your father’s older, he’s no wimp. Plus the angle of the blade and the locations of the wounds show the person was at least five-foot-nine. That’s getting tall for a woman.”

  “Not really that tall.”

  “But taller than average.”

  “So it’s possible it’s a tall-ish woman,” I pushed.

  “Ari, please drop it. I’m not saying you’re not intelligent enough to figure it out, because I know you are. But in law enforcement you need support—people looking out for your back, covering for you in dangerous situations. You don’t have that insurance when you’re going solo. For now please stick to filing and your coursework. You’ll get to do the investigative stuff soon enough, but you have a lot to learn first.”

  “Can I at least talk through the case notes and evidence with you—you know, all that learning shit you want me to do?”

  “As for the learning shit, yes, I’d love to.”

  Chapter 17

  Two years ago ...

  Although Kathryn Brannigan was only five years old, she was an old soul—independent, unusually inquisitive, more sensitive and mature than her peers; in a word: different. As she looked up at Scott Guffrey, the tears in her eyes brought the green and yellow flecks to life, like little goldfish swimming in shallow pools. “Such deep eyes,” her mother Helen often said of her. “Like beacons of hope for a better future.”

  Helen dropped three generic brand chocolate chip cookies on a plate and filled a glass half full with milk. The milk jug was almost empty and they were still a week away from payday. They’d have to ration it until then. Maybe half a glass is too much, she thought as she poured some from the glass back into the jug.

  Setting the plate down on the coffee table stained with crusts of food that, left to harden, were now barnacled into the surface, Kat muttered a “thank you, Mommy” between bites. A simple treat to wipe away the tears. It never failed.

  The living room floor slanted slightly toward the far wall, which Kat appreciated as she’d release balls and watch them race along the dirty carpet, but for Helen Brannigan, it was just one more reminder that her trailer was falling apart. Along with her life.

  Things should have been looking up. She was engaged to a wonderful, hardworking man, Scott Guffrey—a solid two steps above her ex, Kat’s father, Cody. Together Scott and Helen created a plan for the perfect future for their blended family. Once they got married they’d get rid of the trailer and buy an affordable four-bedroom house and the new, better life that came with it. Kat and her little sister Tempest would each get their own rooms; so would Mikey, Scott’s son. With Kat now in kindergarten and Tempest starting school the following year, the paycheck-sucking daycare costs would end and they’d finally have extra cash—something Helen hadn’t enjoyed the luxury of, well, ever. At least not since having kids.

  Trailer park life was a sadistic cycle. The meth addictions that held so many captive. The home burglaries that funded the addictions. The crummy, congested living quarters. The absence of a safe yard for the kids to play in. The scarcity of decent jobs. The underfunded schools. In Kat’s case, they were lucky enough to live on the outskirts of a wealthy school district. At least they had thought themselves lucky. Boy, were they wrong. Mixing snooty, entitled kids with proud, needy kids with chips on their shoulders was a recipe for disaster. Sometimes it was all-out class warfare. The poor kids that didn’t stick up for themselves got pushed around. Kat was a scrapper and never backed down from a fight.

  Bullying—the new epidemic. A form of psychological torture that made military interrogation techniques look childish. Back in Helen’s day bullying took place on the playground where you could fight it out or walk away. A snide remark or two, usually intercepted by a teacher. Nowadays it was a barrage of premeditated attacks, not just in school, but in the very bedrooms of kids active on social media. There was no escape from the insults, the filthy rumors, the false accusations when they followed you home on your Facebook or Instagram or Twitter accounts. Luckily Kat didn’t have these luxuries, but Helen knew the reality: the bullying would only get worse, grow bigger, like a hurricane gathering speed and power as it headed for shore.

  Things had to change before then. They needed out of this town, out of this downtrodden trailer park, out of this helpless school with its ineffective policies and hapless teachers who concerned themselves more with appeasing parents than stopping a pint-sized terrorist from sending Kat home in tears day after day.

  Enough was enough.

  All Helen wanted was for her daughter to fit in. Be happy. Such a simple request, really.

  It’d all change soon. Maybe they could finally get Kat out of this school and into one without Sophie, the entitled brat whose parents ingrained in her that she was a princess and poor people were meant to serve her every whim. The moment Kat refused she became the target of Sophie’s endless torment. Kids could be so cruel.

  Hence today’s sobs and sniffles and hugs and cookies ... again.

  As Scott and Kat exchanged whispers on the sofa and Tempest napped in the girls’ shared bedroom, Mikey walked in from the back porch, the spitting image, Helen imagined, of his father when Scott was three, going on four. He was a devil-may-care boy’s boy in the Tom Sawyer mold, with mud on his face, caked in his hair, grass stains on his clothes. There was no escaping bath time tonight.

  “You digging for worms again?” Helen asked him.

  “Yup, found four!” He held out three chubby fingers. Sliding onto the empty cushion on the other side of Scott, he said, “Hey, Daddy. Whatcha doin’?”

  “Hey, bud. Just hanging out with my best girl,” Scott answered, squeezing Kat into a burst of giggles.

  “Can I have a cookie too?” Mikey asked, pointing at the remnants on Kat’s plate.

  Shoot. Helen had given the last ones to Kat, which she now regretted because of the growing rivalry between the two kids. “Sorry, Mikey. Those were the last ones, but I promise to get you whatever kind you like when I go to the grocery store, okay?”

  Huffing an okay, he crossed his arms and pulled his knees up to his chest while his father continued to dote on Kat.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” Scott said as he pulled her closer to him. “You want me to take care of Sophie for you? I’ll show her who’s boss.” He flexed his biceps and Kat laughed as crumbs spurted like a sprinkler from her mouth.

  “How ‘bout you give it a squeeze?”

  Kat reached up and poked at his arm muscle.

  “Hey, Daddy, look at my muscles.” Mikey excitedly held out his arm, pulling his sleeve up above his thin, little-boy-sized bicep.

  “Those aren’t muscles,” Kat jeered.

  “No, these are muscles, Mikey.” While Mikey frowned, glaring jealously at his soon-to-be-sister, Scott’s arms did a brawny dance. “These guns will scare off the meanest of girls.”

  “That’s about all they’ll scare off,” Helen teased from the kitchen as she loaded the dishwasher.

  “Hey, this is an A and B conversation, so C your way out of it.”

  Helen groaned. Scott, a boy stuck in a man’s body. “I haven’t heard that since I was Kat’s age.”

  “It’s a classic.”

  Scott
flashed her that charming grin he used to win her heart months ago when they first met. Scott had walked into the bar where she bartended, showing off with his buddies from work as he slid up to the bar top and ordered a round of beers for everyone. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his blatant attempt to impress her, which she secretly appreciated. It’d been too long since a man showed her any attention. In her twenties it was easy to get a slap on the butt or a whistle; now in her late thirties with two kids and a body that showed it, she felt like she’d been mummified.

  Helen had reached the stage where she could take or leave male companionship. She was no slut, having only been with two men in her life—her husband Cody and now her fiancé Scott—and she had always been self-confident in her looks, even during the many weight fluctuations that came with a slowing metabolism. But when your tips are based on attractiveness and flirting, well, it’s a lot better to get ogled and pay your rent than be ignored and barely scrape by.

  Luckily Scott took that variable out of the equation when he sauntered into her life wearing cowboy boots, tight-fitting Wranglers, and a cowboy hat that hung just low enough to shade his eyes and add a dose of mystery to the face beneath the brim. As he placed his hat on the sticky bar counter, she noticed him right away—incredible blue eyes, curly blond hair that instantly made her think of Matthew McConaughey, and a lithe body that made her want to unbutton that blue work shirt he wore with his name embroidered on a Drew’s Plumbing patch: Scott Guffrey.

  A nice, solid, reliable name, as far as names went.

  The $100 tip was nice, sure, but what really got Helen’s motor running was Scott’s attentiveness. He barely took his eyes off of her and lavished her with little compliments that sounded sincere and unrehearsed, nothing like the tired, often crude lines she parried on a nightly basis from drunken Lotharios. For the first time in years Helen felt special and beautiful. She’d never bought into the whole cornball “swept off your feet” thing, but now that it was happening to her, she didn’t resist. They’d embarked upon a whirlwind romance and never looked back.

  The best part was that the girls loved him too. Their stamp of approval was make-it-or-break-it for any potential boyfriend, and since Scott had a son of his own, he knew kids. He knew how to play with them, hug them, tuck them in at night, sing to them, even discipline them, which he never did, of course. He was all play, which was just fine with Helen. As she watched Scott ease Kat’s woes with a kiss on her sweet head, Helen felt like all was right with the world.

  “I don’t want to go back there,” Kat whined into Scott’s arm as she leaned into him. “Why can’t I stay home with you? You could be my teacher!”

  “Don’t you worry, honey,” he whispered secretively in her ear. “We’ll be out of here very soon. You’ll never have to deal with that mean girl again.”

  In his little unnoticed corner, Mikey wished he’d never have to deal with Kat again.

  Chapter 18 Ari

  “It’s been too long, honey, too long.”

  “I know, Mrs. E. I’ve missed you over the years.”

  Mrs. E, as I had called her since I was five years old and first allowed to talk to the neighbors, was short for Mrs. Eidenschink. Not a single person referred to her by that mouthful. It was common knowledge that she preferred plain old Mrs. E; the friendly moniker had stuck with everyone up and down the street. We had been across-the-street neighbors until I was sent away, and I hadn’t seen her since. On particularly boring nights at the group homes I’d reminisce about sneaking across the street to accept baked treats from her while she gardened. By gardening I mean placing hundreds of gnomes, birdhouses, angels, and a mishmash of tacky lawn ornaments all over her yard. And I mean not a patch of grass was left untainted by the eyesores as Carli and I would make a game of navigating through them like Indiana Jones to reach our trophy: that day’s freshly baked goodies. While most people found Mrs. E odd and kept their distance, I appreciated the eccentricities that made humanity, in its infinite variety, so colorful.

  “How have you been?” I asked, sitting at a kitchen table surrounded by yellowed newspapers on one side and a lampshade on the other.

  When I’d decided to visit Mrs. E and she’d invited me inside, I was unprepared for the assault on my senses. First there was the pungent ammonia smell of cat pee, which my eyes and nose followed to an overflowing litter box in the foyer. A scruffy marmalade cat with a corkscrew tail had just finished doing its business (loudly and stinkily) and eyed me with cold feline indifference. I remembered the ranch-style house as being clean and cozy, with a lived-in vibe: an inviting place to visit. Now the foyer was the only hospitable spot in the house—a clearing in the impenetrable jungle of what I instantly perceived as Mrs. E’s late-life hoarding disorder. Piles of boxes, knickknacks, books, old magazines, and motley of junk took up every wall, every corner, practically every inch of space. Out of pure necessity Mrs. E had blazed a narrow path that wended its way throughout the detritus littering the once spacious house. It was this path we followed to the kitchen, where Mrs. E cleared out a small space for me to set down my coffee mug, and then joined me at the table. It was a wonder she could find a clean dish amid the phone books and useless garbage stacked along her counters—if the mug was indeed clean to begin with. It took sheer force of will to take a sip—purely out of politeness—as I considered her offer.

  “Been okay. Arthritis acting up as usual,” she replied.

  “Keeping the neighborhood kids in check?”

  Mrs. E chuckled, her wide lips painted in red lipstick. “Oh, Ari, I can’t keep up with them these days. I feel slap wore out most of the time. What about you—how are you, dear? Got a husband yet?”

  The ever-asked question of a barely grown woman in her early twenties. I imagined the questions persisted with age. Married yet? Kids yet? Mortgage yet?

  “I’m only twenty-four; got plenty of time.”

  “Honey, by age twenty-four I had been married six years!”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. E. I’m not doomed for spinsterhood. I’m actually dating someone special.”

  Her black penciled eyebrows rose, only accentuating how crooked they had been drawn on as her hands trembled. The wrinkles didn’t help matters. At least the brows matched half of Mrs. E’s black dye job—the half that hadn’t grown out in a shock of white roots.

  “Bring him on by sometime and I’ll whip up some golabki.” I remembered Mrs. E bringing this Polish dish over shortly after Carli’s funeral. The word had reminded my ten-year-old self of glob, which was exactly what it had looked like to me then and still did—cabbage, spicy meat, and rice mixed together in an edible, well, glob.

  “Sounds wonderful. I’d love to take you up on that. I know he’d instantly like you.”

  “You’re such a doll,” she beamed. It’d probably been ages since she’d spent quality time with someone who wasn’t her cat. “Tell me what’s new with you. I’m low on gossip since Ethel died last year.”

  “Well, I’m a private investigator now.” So I stretched the truth like a long string of gum, but Mrs. E wouldn’t care about the particulars.

  “Ooh, fascinating! Like Dick Tracy?”

  “Uh, sort of, yeah. Which is why I’m here, actually.”

  “Let me guess.” She placed a skeletal finger against her gaunt cheek and gazed upward in thought. Mrs. E always had a flair for the dramatic. “It’s about your father, am I right? You know I always keep an eye on things ’round here.”

  “I knew you’d come through for me,” I affirmed with a wink. “I’m sure the police have talked to you too, but I was hoping maybe I could find out if there’s something they missed.”

  “I’ll tell you what I told the nice officer who stopped by. It was around nine o’clock when I was settling down for the night. Lucy—that’s my cat—started meowing at me to go out, and just as I let her out I saw a person in sunglasses walking at a brisk pace down the street. I thought it odd—sunglasses after dark. Who does that? But
that’s all I saw, unfortunately.”

  “Do you know anything about what the person looked like? Could you tell if it was a man or a woman? Race? Any facial features or distinguishing marks? A limp? Anything at all?”

  “Let’s see.” She tapped her sharp chinbone. “He was wearing a black hoodie, so I couldn’t get a look at his face. Whole body covered in black.”

  “You think it was a he?”

  “What other kind of criminal is there? It’s always a man.”

  I didn’t want to correct her that plenty of women led criminal lives too, so I let her go on.

  “I’m 95 percent sure it was a white person. It was dark, so it was hard to tell.”

  “What about his body type? Thin, thick?”

  “Skinny, I’m pretty sure. It wasn’t a bulky kind of body, and his clothes hung on him loose-like. Very slender. Not real tall, either, I don’t think. Though, I could be wrong. My memory isn’t what it used to be. I wish I could be more help.”

  I rested my hand on her knuckles that nearly jutted through skin as thin as tissue paper. “This is definitely helpful. I’ll keep you posted. And we’ll figure out a time to do dinner together, okay?”

  She smiled, revealing her coffee-stained dentures.

  “Thank you, Ari. Don’t be a stranger, y’hear?”

  With a gentle hug—I feared breaking her brittle bones—I left knowing that this narrowed down the suspect list to pretty much ... anyone. Possibly male or female. And maybe white. Slim. Not too tall.

  Great.

  I slipped into my car and sat in thought. I was convinced that my father’s attacker was the same person who killed Scott Guffrey and Jackson Jones. As Tristan had pointed out, same MO, same knife wound, all connected to my suicide support group in some way. Something trusting about this killer let these victims invite him or her into their homes.

  My mother hadn’t heard a peep while my father had gotten stabbed. If the killer was a man who barged his way in, wouldn’t my father have cried out for help? A woman could have manipulated her way inside. But then she’d have to look pretty suspicious wearing a black hoodie when she showed up. After all his dealings with Battan, my father knew better than to invite strangers into his home.