“I can prove to you that we were having an affair!” She steps back into her house, walking down into a hallway. I poke my head in through the door. The house seems awfully dark for someone so religious. I would think she’d want sunshine coming through every window, but the shades are drawn on the few windows the house does have. Maybe that’s what shame does.
Julia comes back out, holding a bunch of notes. She hands them to me.
“Philip left these notes under my car windshield wipers or under my door,” she says.
I hope you have a great day. I love you more than you could ever know, —P
I was listening to this song called “Deeper Love” by Ashley Woodson and it reminded me of you. I can’t wait to see you tonight -P
I know this is difficult, but I know our feeling for each other are stronger than any problems we could face. Don’t give up on us. I know you think God would condemn our relationship, but he wouldn’t have brought us together if it weren’t for a good reason. Give us another chance. -P
“Okay, there’s no reason for me to believe this is Philip,” I say, handing the notes back to her.
“I’m sure you can find samples of his writing somewhere,” she says. “It will match his writing here. I’m guilty of a lot of things, but I didn’t kill him.”
I scowl. My gut is telling me that she’s right. I hate when my gut gives me inconvenient truths.
“Stay in town,” I tell her. I turn around. Lauren is watching me through the front windshield. I throw my hands up in exaggerated exasperation before getting back into the car.
“At least you weren’t shot with a nail gun?” she says.
“At least we caught Mary after I was shot,” I say. “We have nothing now. No suspects, nothing. We just found out that everyone is a liar around us.”
“Let’s just go back to my apartment,” she says. “We’ve been chasing our tails all day. We can drink some champagne and sleep on it.”
“You know what really helps me?” I ask, leaning over to kiss the edge of her mouth. “It really stimulates everything inside me.”
“Be good,” she says, pressing her fingertips against my chest to push me away. “And maybe I’ll help you to arouse all kinds of thoughts.”
I’ve never driven faster in my life.
* * *
The name Tobias actually has Biblical origins from the Book of Tobit, which is Biblical canon for certain sects of Christianity, but isn’t considered to be inspired by God in other sects. Tobit—or in the Latin translation, Tobias—is saved by the angel Raphael when Raphael leads him to the woman he would marry, chases the demon away that had been killing off his bride’s husbands, and cures his father’s blindness. The moral of the story is supposed to be something about how well prayer works, how people should respect their parents, particularly their fathers, and that angels are badasses that can overcome demons.
I have not lived up to my namesake. I stopped believing in angels when I was a teenager, I haven’t saved any woman, I haven’t gotten married, and I haven’t cured my father of his sickness.
I’m doing fucking terrible at life.
I feel the weight on Lauren’s bed shift as she sits down next to me. I roll over to look at her.
“You’re up early,” I mumble.
“I don’t know how you could sleep,” she says. “Usually, you’re the fanatical one that can’t sleep until we catch the killer.”
“Well, it’s been a very long, arduous week of tracking down a handful of suspects and having to discover none of them are the killer, so I’m going into a short hibernation,” I say, pulling the blankets tighter around me. “Did you figure out anything while you were awake?”
“Yes,” she says. “I figured out something that I need to ask you again.”
“You can ask me anything,” I say.
“Why don’t you want kids?”
I roll over, so my back is turned toward her. “That’s not a question. That’s an ambush. I already told you why.”
“I know you, Tobias,” she says. “I know how you react to things you don’t like or things you don’t want to be around…that’s not how you react around kids. You act like you’re scared of them.”
“I am not scared of kids,” I say. “Kids are the least scary thing in the world. I will fight twenty six-year-olds. I’m not scared.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” she says. “If you don’t trust me to tell me the truth, then how can our relationship survive?”
“If you can’t trust me enough to let it go, how can our relationship survive?” I retort.
“That’s really incomparable,” she says. “It takes more trust to accept someone’s refusal to tell the truth than to tell a secret and hope the other person can deal with the truth.”
“There’s nothing to tell!” I snap. “It’s not anything you need to know about it. It doesn’t matter.”
“If it doesn’t matter, then tell me.”
“Why are you so desperate to know?” I demand.
“Because I can’t trust someone who doesn’t trust me.”
“Fine. Fine,” I snap, sitting up. “You know why I don’t want kids? I don’t want kids because I already had one. My girlfriend in high school was four months pregnant when she miscarried. The day she told me, I decided that I wasn’t going to love another thing that much when I could lose it that easily. That’s the whole thing. It’s not a sob story, it’s not an excuse—I just made a decision when I was a teenager and I’ve kept that promise to myself. Until I met you. I let myself fall in love with you and I’m already beginning to question if that’s the right decision because I know you’re already having doubts. I may not be able to read body language like you, but I can read it in your eyes every time you look at me.”
“Tobias, I’m sorry about your child,” she says. “I really am. But there’s a larger chance there won’t be a miscarriage, especially after the first couple of months. You’re afraid of something that has a small chance of happening! You’re willing to sacrifice the happiness of having a child because of your fear that isn’t even—”
“How can you stand there and judge me?” I ask. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose a child.”
“I lost both of my parents. I know exactly what it’s like to lose a loved one. I know what it’s like to lose two—”
“That’s not the same as losing a child!” I shout, jumping out of the bed. “It’s not the same. A child has a whole future in front of them. I was going to raise that child to learn everything I knew and so much more. But that future is completely gone. A whole lifetime is gone.”
“Can’t you at least be open about the idea of having a child?” she asks.
“No,” I snap. “No. I can’t be.”
I grab the boxer briefs and jeans I was wearing yesterday and jerk them on. I yank on my shirt, every one of my actions feeling like an attack.
“You don’t need to leave, Tobias,” Lauren says. “We need to talk about this.”
“We really don’t,” I say. “I just need a few hours to cool off.”
I grab my wallet and leave her apartment, my thoughts just angry flashes of red and the knowledge of how easily future plans can be erased.
* * *
When I finally show up at the police station, I’m a couple hours late, but I figure I can always tell them that the reason I’m late is because I was chasing more pointless leads. I’m still pissed off because I left my cell phone at Lauren’s, but it doesn’t help my mood when I pass by Jack Hamlin, who glares at me like I had been the one concealing important information about a serial killer’s victim.
But as I reach my desk, I realize the whole police station seems to be tense. Everyone’s movements are rigid and deliberate as if they’re all waiting for bad news or preparing for an uphill battle.
As Romano passes by my desk, I grab his arm.
“What’s going on?” I ask. I nod toward Lauren’s desk. “Where’s Lauren?”
“She didn’t tell you?” he asks. “Where have you been? Patrick White’s son came in this morning. He had confessed to his father that he had seen—or at least he thinks he saw—Glenn Erwin being propped up at the baseball field as he waited for his father to finish working at New Hearts. I can’t believe she didn’t tell you. This could be our big break.”
“Son of a bitch,” I mutter. Lauren wouldn’t have taken a child to the interrogation room, which leaves only one other room. I stalk to the break room. Just like I expected, Lauren’s sitting at the rickety plastic table there, talking to a small boy with fine blond hair who sits across from her while Patrick White drinks some coffee near the doorway.
Lauren glances up as I step into the room, but she quickly looks back at the little boy.
“So, you’re saying that you saw Julia pushing the cross into the dirt at the baseball field?” she asks. “You’re certain it was her? She doesn’t seem like she would be strong enough.”
“I saw her!” the boy insists. “It was her. I thought of going over to say hi until I saw that man on the cross.”
I take a couple of steps over to stand beside Patrick White.
“Must have freaked you out to hear that your son had seen the murderer,” I whisper.
He nods. “I’d noticed that he was acting strangely, but I figured it was simply part of him being adopted—he was having doubts about whether my wife and I loved him and if his parents abandoned him because of something he did…it happens to a lot of adoptees. They all react differently—some become depressed, some become angry, some cut themselves off from social interaction. I never imagined that he had seen one of my employees commit murder.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” I say. “There’s no way you could have known.”
Lauren sits up. “I think we know enough now. Thank you, Mr. White and Bobby.”
“Of course,” Patrick says, shaking her hand. “I’m always happy to help the police.”
He wraps his arm around his son’s shoulders and leads him out of the room. I sit down across from Lauren at the table.
“So, Julia was lying,” I say.
“Apparently,” she says, not looking up as she jots down some notes. “Bobby didn’t show any signs that he was lying and it’s harder for a child to hide those kinds of things.”
“Why don’t we go talk to Julia and see where she was the night that Glenn was put in the baseball field?” I ask.
“You should go do that since you already have good rapport with her,” she says. “I’m going to look into Julia’s financials and her cell phone history to see if there’s a connection between her and Mary or any other suspect.”
“Okay,” I say. “Do you have my cell phone? I left it at your apartment.”
“I put it in your top desk drawer,” she says.
I open my mouth, wanting to continue this conversation until we can find some middle ground—a place where the past few days can be erased—but no words come to me. Maybe this is how relationships end: when even the idle words fail you.
I don’t know how to save our relationship and after our last fight, and I don’t know if I really want to.
* * *
When Julia opens her door, she’s wearing a light pink silk nightgown with a cardigan draped over her shoulders.
“It’s almost eleven in the afternoon,” I say.
“And I get one day off a week,” she says. “Today is that day, so I was trying to relax as long as possible. Did you need something, detective?”
“I just wanted to ask you some more questions,” I say.
“Is this going to take a long time?”
“It could,” I say.
“Then, come in,” she says, indicating the inside of her house.
“Thank you,” I murmur, stepping into the dark interior. Her feet shuffle against the wood as she walks down the hall. I follow her as she turns into a small living room, filled with furniture with flower designs all over it. She sits down in the armchair, so I sit across from her on the couch.
“Do you have company often?” I ask, gazing around the room. Though there’s a large window, it’s covered by dark gray shades. Still, she has a couch and two armchairs, so it would seem like she expects company at least occasionally.
“Are you asking whether Philip ever came to my house?”
“You asked the question,” I say. “You might as well answer it.”
“He did,” she confesses. “I suppose that’s why I keep the shades drawn all of the time. I was ashamed when he would come here and I’m still ashamed now.”
“Is there a reason you’re ashamed?”
“I slept with a man who was married to someone else,” she states. “It’s not hard to understand why I’m ashamed.”
“Were you with Philip the few days before he was found?” I ask.
“A couple weeks ago?” she asks. “Yeah. I saw him the night before he disappeared. I remember because I spent the next few days trying to figure out why he stopped contacting me. I had begun to assume he was avoiding me until I saw in the news that the police had found him near Lake Erie.”
“That day was the fifth of April and he died about a week before that, so he was put there around the thirtieth of March,” I say. “Can you tell me where you were that day?”
“Well, if it was the same day he stopped contacting me, I was working most of the day and then moping around my house for the rest of it,” she says. “I was very…I was upset. Can’t you see that?”
She cradles her face in her hands and her shoulders begin to shake. This is where Lauren would be the better detective, but I walk over to Julia and place my hand on her back.
“It’s okay,” I reassure her. “I understand. It’s difficult when someone close to you is murdered, but I’m sure it’s harder when you can’t tell anyone what your relationship with them was.”
She raises her head and stands to reach up to me. Her fingers brush against my cheek.
“You’re a kind man,” she murmurs. “You do understand what it’s like to lose someone close to you, don’t you?”
“I do,” I tell her. Her hands move down from my face to my shoulders. They trace down my arms and move inward to my waist. She hooks her fingers around the loops on my jeans. I start to take a step back, but she holds me in place.
“I’ve heard rumors that this killer has left extra messages on the backs of the crosses,” she says. “Do you know anything about it?”
“I know some things,” I tell her. “But I can’t tell you about it.”
She pulls off her light pink cardigan, revealing her small shoulders, which are sprinkled with freckles. Standing this close to her, I have a great view of her cleavage.
“Come on,” she says. “It’s not going to hurt your case at all if you tell me a secret or two.”
“I don’t think I should,” I say.
She slips her hand up my shirt, touching each muscle in my abdomen. With Lauren’s cold shoulder, it would be so easy to fall into this. Infidelity is certainly a sin, but it has to be the most enjoyable one.
“If you tell me something, I’ll tell you a secret,” she says. She lifts up on of her legs propping her foot on the loveseat. It makes her nightgown hike up her thighs. Her legs are pale, but nicely shaped. As I gaze at her thighs, she grasps both sides of my face, looking up at me. “You are the most intriguing creature.”
“You’re an enigma yourself,” I say.
She takes my hand and presses it against her stomach. She slides it down until my palm is covering her white underwear.
“I bet with your detective skills you could figure me out,” she says.
I’ve gotten tired of this game. I lean in close to her, my mouth lingering near her ear.
“I can figure out some things,” I say. “Like the fact that you crucified Glenn Erwin, which means you killed Philip too.”
I take a step back from her. Her eyes are wide and her whole body has gone rigid.
“Wha
t?” she blurts. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t even know Glenn Erwin except for the fact that he adopted his son through our agency.”
“Yes, that is how you knew him,” I say. “So, tell me: were you having an affair with him? Is that why you skipped over the adultery commandment? Because your victims were all cheating assholes?”
“Victims?” she asks, pulling her skirt back on. “What are you talking about? You think that I killed either of them?”
“I think you killed both of them, actually,” I say. “And I have a witness that places you at the baseball field. You just told me that you knew both of them. I think I’m a few minutes away from a full-blown confession.”
“No! I didn’t kill either of them,” she insists, pulling her cardigan back on. “I would never kill anybody.”
“Miss Simpson, you just tried to seduce me. You were having an affair with a married man,” I say. “I’m going under the assumption that your moral compass is broken. You can’t expect me to believe that you were having an affair with Philip when there’s no record of you calling or texting him, there’s no mysterious charges on his credit cards or mysterious withdrawals from his bank account, and even though you live alone, there is zero evidence that a man has ever set foot in this house. You were not having an affair with him.”
She plops back into her armchair. “You’re a pretty damn good detective. Detroit should be proud.”
“Are you confessing?”
Her lips curl up. “Please. I was lying about the fact that Philip and I were having an affair, but I didn’t kill him or Glenn Erwin. Philip and I had flirted quite a bit and I was on the brink of convincing him to have an affair with me, but we hadn’t quite reached that point. I work part-time for a newspaper company—it’s called The Rising Truth, you can check my employment with the owner—and they wanted me to get close to Philip in order to figure out if he was stealing money from his boss by creating fake charges. My boss wanted me to ruin Philip over an old grudge and I went along with it because he paid me extra to do it.”
Violence of the Father (A Trinity of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 2) Page 9
