Violence of the Father (A Trinity of Death Romantic Suspense Series Book 2)

by Raine, Charlotte

  “You’ve lied to me repeatedly,” I say. “Why would I believe you now?”

  “Because my boss will back me up.”

  “Your boss at the New Hearts adoption agency also thought you were a saint, but clearly, you’re not.”

  She snorts. “Patrick White is a kind, sweet man, and those are the easiest kind to fool.”

  I unhook my cuffs from my duty belt.

  “Come on,” I say. “Turn around, put your hands behind your back.”

  “Are you supposed to tell me to put them on my head?” she asks.

  “Turn around and put your hands behind your back before I have to use force in order to get you to comply,” I snarl.

  She turns around. I cuff her wrists.

  “I usually wait until the second date before the handcuffs are brought in,” she says.

  “Well, your second date is going to be at a women’s jail,” I say. “I’m sure you’ll have a very romantic dinner with somebody who’s having their first night without heroin.”

  “That’s nothing,” she says. “You should try being around journalists with a looming deadline.”

  “You have the right to remain silent. You might want to use that right.”

  “No thanks,” she says. “This will be a great story when it’s found out that you arrested the wrong person.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  * * *

  “There are rumors that this killer is now being called the Commandment Killer for choosing his victims by those who have broken one of the Ten Commandments,” radio host Cameron Cassidy says.

  I turn up the radio. Charlie Cassidy is an asshole shock jock, but he has enough sway over the general population that it can help me figure out what the rest of the city thinks about the police’s actions.

  “Mary Fitzgerald allegedly crucified—that’s right, nailed the poor bastards to a cross—the first two victims, but now two more have popped up while Mary Fitzgerald is in prison. Some are questioning whether Mary was even guilty of the first two murders. The Detroit police are insisting that she confessed to the two murders, but there’s zero evidence that she actually did. You guys know me, I don’t like this holier-than-thou teen, but it does raise some questions—the biggest one being: are the Detroit police inadequate idiots? We have some calls coming in. Let’s answer a few.”

  “He is right about one thing,” Julia says, handcuffed to the grab handle above the passenger window. “You guys are inadequate idiots. What reason would I have to kill those people?”

  I turn down the radio.

  “Well, you’re a religious nut who sleeps around with married men,” I say. “Maybe it’s shame and guilt that drives you to think you’re saving people by crucifying them.”

  “I’m not a religious nut. I’m just religious,” she says.

  I raise an eyebrow. “Really? So, you have all this religious stuff on your desk while you were trying to sleep with a married man for your job and you also just tried to seduce a detective. There’s something wrong with that picture. Either you’re not really religious or your idea of Christianity is so warped that you think you can get away with those things and murder people too.”

  “I am a true Christian,” she insists. “God will forgive me for my sins and God would have forgiven me for premarital sex if it were to protect myself from blowing my cover for my job. God loves all his children, even the ones who mess up all of the time.”

  I grip the steering wheel. “Did you ever want kids?”

  “Excuse me?” she asks, more surprised than when I accused her of being a sociopathic serial killer. “Kids?”

  “Yeah. Did you ever want any?”

  “No,” she says. “I didn’t want any when I was a little girl and I don’t want any now.”

  “Would you ever date someone who wants kids?”

  “Detective, even when I’m not doing an undercover job, I still tend to gravitate toward married men. There’s a reason for that,” she says. “They don’t want anything too serious and neither do I.”

  I nod. “That makes sense.”

  “So, this doesn’t take a genius to figure out. You’re in a relationship with someone who wants kids, but you don’t want kids yourself,” she says. “Do you want my opinion on that?”

  “Not really.”

  “I’m going to give it to you anyway,” she says. “It’s good that you’re asking these questions and not assuming everything you think is right. It means that you care about your significant other. It’s a good step. The question always comes back to your motives though—why don’t you want kids? Because if it’s truly that you hate the idea of kids, that you hate the idea of raising kids, that you’re satisfied with your life without children, then you shouldn’t have them. There’s no point in bringing a child into a possibly hostile environment where you might resent them for existing. But if it’s because you’re afraid that you’ll mess them up or you think the world in general is terrible, you should at least think twice about it. You don’t want to get to the end of your life and realize that you could have brought new life into the world and simply didn’t do it because you were scared.”

  “Well, thank you for your advice,” I say. “But we should remember that you’re the one in handcuffs in my car. I don’t think you’re the best person for me to take life advice from.”

  “And you’re the inadequate idiot,” she says. “It’s better to be the immoral whore than the moron.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” I say. “Only the immoral think it’s better to be immoral.”

  “And only the idiot is the one left with the short end of the stick,” she says. “I’m not the one having a mid-life crisis.”

  “I’m thirty-three!”

  She shrugs. I turn the radio volume back up.

  “I mean, this killer is kidnapping people, keeping them hostage for at least a couple days in order for their crucifixion to be completed, and this has happened four times now,” Charlie Cassidy chuckles. “How do they not catch these guys? How hard could it possibly be?”

  Everyone’s a critic.

  * * *

  As I pull Julia into the interrogation room, Lauren gestures for me to come talk to her. I close the door, locking Julia inside, and walk over to Lauren.

  “What did you find?” I ask.

  “Nothing on Julia,” she says. “She has no connection to Mary.”

  “And that’s why you wanted to talk to me?” I ask. “To tell me that you have nothing?”

  “No,” she snaps. “I also found out that the flesh from your room is a DNA match to Philip’s…that means that the killer cut off some of his flesh before the animals got to him, like we suspected. This killer is merciless.”

  “Should we stick together for now on then?” I ask. “The killer’s message in my apartment was clearly aimed at both of us and we can protect each other better together.”

  “Or the killer will only try to kill us if we’re together,” she says. “If it’s infidelity he’s mad about and he enjoys making a scene of everything, he’d want to kill us together. It’s probably best if we just have a police officer park outside our apartments.”

  Her logic is nearly flawless, but there’s a tone in her voice that tells me that this is about more than the killer. She’s avoiding me.

  “So, what did you find out?” she asks.

  “Julia Simpson is actually a journalist who was undercover, trying to figure out if Philip Herdon was stealing money from his boss. She’s also, apparently, still Christian and she’ll get mad if you try to say that she’s not.”

  “How did you find all of this out?”

  “I am a detective. I might not have your body language reading ability, but I can fare well enough on my own.”

  Before Lauren can respond, Cameron Mattinson, our Captain, walks up to us.

  “Hey, so, I know this is abrupt, but I thought you two should be some of the first people to know,” he says. “I’m going to be leaving the
job as soon as we find the man who killed Erwin and Herdon. I’m moving to Texas and the rest of my family is leaving tonight.”

  “That does seem abrupt,” Lauren says.

  “My wife has a soap and lotion business,” he says. “And it’s been broken into three times in the last month. She wants to move back with her family. I don’t want to be away from my children for a long time, so I need you two to solve these murders.”

  “It’s not like we’re not trying,” I say. “We want to catch them just as badly as you do.”

  Mattinson puts his hand on my shoulder. “There is no way that you want this as badly as I do. You don’t have children. This killer hasn’t tracked down any kids yet, but I don’t trust psychopaths. Just find him and ensure that you have enough evidence that he can never get out of prison.”

  “Of course, sir,” I say.

  His hand drops back to his side and he walks away from us.

  “He’s a mess,” Lauren says. “He threw a stapler at the wall earlier. I think he and his wife are heading toward divorce.”

  “Well, the threat of a relationship ending and a serial killer on the loose could make anyone crazy,” I say. I open up the interrogation room’s door. “So, let’s solve this and let the pieces fall where they may.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lauren

  “I mean, you didn’t actually think I killed those people, right?” Jack Hamlin asks me as he sits on the corner of my desk. “I didn’t get along with Herdon, but that doesn’t mean I’m a killer.”

  “We were just checking every possible lead,” I say. “It’s nothing personal, Jack. You should have told us your connection to Herdon in the beginning.”

  “I know, but I just didn’t want to drag myself into anything,” he says. “It was a natural, self-preserving reaction.”

  “That doesn’t make it right,” I say. Suddenly, the interrogation door slams open and Tobias stomps over to my desk.

  “For the love of God, can you go interrogate her?” he snarls. “I’ve been going at her for half an hour and the conversation is just going in circles. She refuses to admit anything and she’s just too good of a liar for me to be able to tell when she’s lying or telling the truth.”

  “Sure,” I say, standing up. “But it’s barely been ten minutes since you went into the room with her.”

  He glances up at the clock and groans.

  “That woman has to be the devil. She told me that her watch said that it was three-thirty p.m.”

  “I got it,” I say, patting his shoulder. I step into the interrogation room, closing the door behind me. Julia is sitting with her legs crossed and her cuffed hands folded in her lap. She might as well be drinking tea with a friend.

  “Are you the one dating Detective Rodriguez?” she asks. “He seemed pretty eager to have the two of us in the same room. Maybe he wants to see a cat fight.”

  “I’m not a cat, sweetheart,” I say, sitting across from her. “I would never be that low on the food chain.”

  “Ooh, so you are his girlfriend,” she says. “So, how badly do you want kids?”

  I clench my fists in my lap. “That’s really none of your business.”

  “You should break up with him,” she says. “No man is worth changing your future plans for. They’re either compatible with your plans or they’re not.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Detective Rodriguez spilled everything to me,” she says. “He’s quite chatty once you get to know him.”

  I lean back into my chair. “He told me quite a bit about you, too. You must be quite the journalist to be going undercover.”

  “The best at my newspaper,” she says. “What about you? You’re a cop. Have you ever been undercover?”

  “Never,” I say. “But you seem quite skilled at it. I mean, you fooled both Detective Rodriguez and me. I thought I was good at reading people, but you were flawless.”

  She smirks. “Don’t take it too badly. I’ve always been an excellent liar, especially to authority figures.”

  “But you’re still devout to God.”

  Her nostrils flare. “Absolutely. As long as I worship God and put him above all things, the smaller things don’t matter as much.”

  “Oh, I’m not doubting how faithful you are to God,” I say. “I actually find it quite admirable. Even when you’re pretending to be interested in a stranger, you’ve stayed devout. Did you have the job at the adoption agency before or after you were told to get close to Philip?”

  “I had it before I went undercover,” she says. “I’ve known Patrick for a long time.”

  I gaze at her. Her body has become more relaxed and there’s almost a smile on her face. She’s as vulnerable as she’s going to get in an interrogation room.

  “So, why did Patrick’s son say that he saw you carrying Glenn Erwin’s body on the cross to the center of the baseball field across from the adoption agency?”

  She jerks backward, her brow furrowed. “What? Patrick’s son? Which one? That’s impossible. They must have me confused with somebody else.”

  “No, he was certain,” I say.

  “It’s impossible,” she says. “I was working that whole day in the agency. I remember seeing all of the cop cars drive by to the station. It was the same day the news said Mary had been arrested for the two original murders. There has to be at least two couples that can confirm I was at my desk when that body had to be put up there. I mean, it had to be put there in the morning, right? If Patrick’s son saw somebody putting it there, it had to have been the same day, so the person had to put it there in the morning or afternoon? I was working at that time!”

  “Patrick’s son said it happened in the early afternoon,” I say. “You’re certain you were working then? You didn’t take an early break or anything?”

  “No, I was at the desk the whole time. The only reason I would have left is to go to the bathroom.”

  I stand up. “Okay. I will check your alibi and I’ll be right back.”

  I step out of the room, locking the door behind me, and walk over to Tobias, who is doodling on a piece of paper at my desk. I stop in front of him. He looks up.

  “Are you drawing skyscrapers?” I ask.

  “Maybe,” he says, covering the piece of paper with his hand. “Did you get anywhere with her?”

  “She’s pretty damn adamant that she was working at the adoption agency at the time the body was left at the park.”

  “But we have a witness that says it was her,” he says.

  “Yes, a kid,” I say. “But I really don’t think she would be this persistent about the fact that she was working if she wasn’t. She’s clearly a lot smarter than we both originally thought she was. She could have told me that she left to go see a sick friend, she had a long smoke break, or one of the couples needed help from her…but she told me she never left her desk unless it was to go to the bathroom, so I don’t think she’s lying.”

  “Well, we can always ask her bosses,” he says. “But you told me the kid wasn’t lying. So, how do you explain that?”

  “It’s possible that he was confused,” I say. “Or somebody convinced him that it was true, so his facial expressions show that it’s true.”

  “A person can just convince another person that something is true?” he asks. “How does that work?”

  “Well, if you asked a child whether the Tooth Fairy is real, they’ll tell you she is,” I say. “In their mind, it’s true, even though it’s actually false. They believe it because someone else told them about it. Now, in order for Bobby to believe what he said—that he actually witnessed something he didn’t witness—somebody likely had to tell him the lie repeatedly.”

  “Like his father?” he asks.

  “Or his mother or his siblings,” I say. “But his father does seem like the most likely one. He was standing there the whole time I was interviewing Bobby.”

  He nods. “It kind of makes sense. Patrick is a fathe
r of several children and he’s essentially the father of the adoption agency. He’s…The Father.”

  “It’s a stretch, but we can go ask him some more questions,” I say. “And at the same time, we can ask him about Julia’s alibi.”

  He looks at the clock. “Why don’t we just go to the adoption agency tomorrow? I noticed they closed early on Fridays and if we rush to talk to Patrick White now, he’s going to be suspicious. It’s better to talk to him while he’s working and pretend we’re just questioning him about Julia.”

  “So, you just want to let Julia go now?” I ask.

  “We can have an officer keep an eye on her,” he says.

  “That’s interesting because I thought that’s what you were doing,” I say.

  As I turn to walk away, he grabs my arm. I turn to face him.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” he asks.

  “It sounds like you two had chemistry,” I say. “That’s it.”

  “I did what I had to in order to get her to confess to something,” he says. “I don’t know what she told you happened, but she tried to seduce me. I went along with it for a couple minutes to put her at ease.”

  “She didn’t tell me anything,” I say. “But you just did.”

  I jerk my arm out of his grasp. He grabs it again, his grip tighter now.

  “Can we talk?” he asks, but it doesn’t come out so much as a question as a command.

  “I’m really tired. I’m just going to go home and study the case from there—”

  “Then, let me walk you home,” he says. “Please.”

  There’s a knot of desperation in his voice that makes me stop struggling against him.

  “Fine,” I say. He releases my arm. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  As we walk through Detroit, I’m reminded of the story of Hansel and Gretel. At their abusive stepmother’s order, their father takes them into the woods and they leave bread crumbs as they’re led in the forest because they know they’re going to be abandoned. Of course, birds ate the crumbs and they ended up being lost until they found the witch’s house. When the witch tries to eat the two of them, Gretel tricks the witch, shoving her in an oven, and burns her alive.