October Snow

by Jenna Brooks

  She looked up at him with eyes he knew he would never forget. “She’s dead.”

  He knew already, but the simplicity of the statement took his breath away–and he put his arms around her, not knowing what else to do.

  He held her for a minute while Dave stared off into the distance. “Thanks for getting here so fast.”

  “Yeah.”

  Derosa appeared, asking gently if Max would come with him.

  “Go on,” Dave said. “We’ll wait at the car.”

  With his hand on Dave’s back, Will cleared a path through the growing crowd for him as they made their way to his car, parked in a reckless diagonal across the street. The door still hung open from when Dave had jumped out to get to Max; as Will moved to shut the door, Dave kicked it closed, then ripped off his jacket and threw it to the ground.

  He was breathing fast, the veins protruding on his neck and forehead. “I need a few minutes.” He looked down at his feet, his hands clasped behind his neck.

  “I’ll wait here for her,” Will said. He watched as Dave walked a short distance toward Elm Street, then broke into a run.

  He opened the driver’s side door, sitting sideways with his feet on the road, watching the carefully controlled chaos across the street. A news van pulled up to the curb about a hundred feet down the street; a cameraman and a tall, blonde woman were hurrying to the house, stopping to ask questions of the people gathered at the corner.

  Ten minutes later, two more crews had arrived, and Max was walking back to him. She was looking at something in her hands–something that she quickly put into her pocket when she saw Will.

  “Where’s Dave?”

  “He took a walk.” He glanced down Plymouth Street. “I think I see him.”

  They waited quietly until Dave joined them. “I’m going to ask them if we can leave now,” he said, and Max nodded.

  She walked to the center of the road, looking at the scene for the last time. Her eyes rested on the blanket that covered Jo.

  I’ll wake up in the morning, and I’ll be okay for a second, and then it will hit me. You know that feeling, the way it jars you. We talked about it once, remember? She lifted her head heavenward, her eyes closed. What do I do then?

  She slipped quickly under the yellow tape as someone with Coroner on his jacket started directing the removal of Jo’s body.

  Clumps of her bloodied hair fell out from underneath the blanket as they lifted her onto the gurney. Max put her hand out. “Wait. Please.”

  She didn’t know when Derosa had come to stand beside her. “Give her a minute, guys.” They nodded and backed away from the gurney; one of them blinked hard a few times, the other cleared his throat and looked away.

  She gently tucked Jo’s hair in again, then laid her hand on the area that covered her head.

  Dave was coming back to her, and she looked to him helplessly, shaking her head as he approached. He sounded like he was suddenly a very old man when he said, “We can leave.”

  Max was still stroking Jo’s head. He laid his hand over hers and murmured, “Rest now, Jo.”

  Max’s tears fell on the back of his hand as she whispered, “Goodbye.”

  “Samantha…No, listen to me…I’ll tell you everything when I get there.” He adjusted the phone, and Max could hear Sam’s straining, fearful voice, asking for details. “We’re on our way…About a half-hour. Will’s right behind us, he’s coming, too.” He listened again, and Max heard her say her name. “Right here with me. She’s going to stay with us for a while. Baby, listen–you need to make me a promise…Yeah, we just crossed into Massachusetts. Listen, promise me you’ll leave the TV off.”

  Max distinctly heard her reply: she was quiet for a moment, then, “I promise.” She sounded completely flat.

  “She’s going to know just from that,” Max said, digging in her pocket as they sped south.

  “I don’t want her seeing it before we’ve told her.” The regional news network out of Boston had pulled up to the scene as they left.

  She put her hand over her mouth, horrified as something suddenly occurred to her. “Who’s going to tell Matt and Johnny?”

  “Derosa was on his way to find them. He’ll take care of it.” He was silent for a minute. “There’s no one else to notify?”

  “No. Yes–a sister. Carolyn.”

  “Where is she?”

  Max realized she had never asked. “I don’t know.” She held Jo’s cell phone in her open hand, showing it to Dave. “Maybe her number’s in here.”

  He glanced at it. “What’s that?”

  “Sergeant Derosa shoved it into my hand when he asked to talk to me that last time. It’s…” As she opened it, she winced at the drop of blood caked on the interior. “It’s Jo’s cell phone.”

  “What the hell…?”

  “He found it on the kitchen floor, told me to chuck it into the Merrimack.”

  “He took evidence from the scene?”

  She shrugged, examining it, checking the missed calls first. “Johnny called her a few times, Becca’s here, you, Sammy…No messages, though.”

  “Try ‘dialed’.”

  “You, Becca, then Johnny, Matt…” She looked over at him. “Jack.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “What time?”

  “Ten-twelve P.M.”

  “Doesn’t make sense. They’ll have Jack’s cell–her call will be there.”

  She was checking the texts. As she read what Jo had done, she alternated between horror and a sick, vengeful feeling of satisfaction. “Got it,” she said. “Pull over.”

  He took the next exit, and pulled into a gas station there. “Let me see.”

  She handed it over. “She screwed with him bad.”

  His mouth went dry as he read the discussion Jo had edited and manufactured. He looked at Max, confused. “Abortion? What is this? She hasn’t had an abortion…”

  “Never happened.” She looked out the window. “She must have gotten ahold of Sammy’s phone, and then sent those to herself.”

  He was rereading them. “Sammy was looking for her phone today. She thought she left it at the beach house.”

  “She got him, Dave. She fixed his ass good. The baby was his power over Sammy, so she made him think it was gone.” She stepped out of the car to light a cigarette. It was all making perfect sense now, in the rambling, maddening way that Jo always made perfect sense.

  “These messages…They’ll be on Sammy’s phone, though.” He looked up. “Where is it? Where did Jo put her phone?”

  Max stared at him knowingly. “This is Jo we’re talking about. She erased all of those texts from Sammy’s phone. I guarantee it.”

  He was beside her then, leaning against the car. “She had no way of knowing we’d find her phone and get rid of it. Jack will be screaming about these texts anyway.”

  “I know. She didn’t do it to hide the evidence of why Jack did what he did.”

  “Why did she do it then?”

  “Think about it. Why did she make this happen to begin with?” She went on without waiting for an answer. “To protect Sammy. Jo wanted to…She wanted to leave anyway, and she needed to go out a hero.” She held up her hand to fend off his question. “I’ll explain that later. It was just a chance that she took, that somehow we’d take care of it. If we didn’t, it really makes no difference anyway to what’s gonna happen to Jack now. He’s going away. But if we were able to destroy this,” she took the phone from his hand, snapping it in half at the hinge, “Sammy will never see what she did.” She stuffed the pieces into her pocket. “She won’t go through her life feeling guilty.”

  “It’s still going to come out.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it gives us an opportunity to protect her.” She gave him a wry look. “Think like a criminal defense attorney. How would you advise him?”

  He added it up quickly. “Keep it from going in front of a jury. She nailed him good. Plea it down.”

  “If there’s no trial, then
there are no hysterical, completely irrational claims of texts–that no one can find–that made him angry enough to kill her.”

  “The wireless company may be able to retrieve them.”

  “Would you bother with that, with the ‘she made me mad so I mutilated her’ defense? After what he did to her?” She remembered Jo’s cynicism toward the court system, and her laugh was bitter, her tone sarcastic. “Jo wasn’t his wife, remember. It’s not as legally acceptable to murder a woman you aren’t married to.”

  “So she did all of this for Sammy.” He leaned his hands on top of the car, his head down. “For Tyler, for the baby. For me.”

  “She was lost, Dave. She wanted to go.”

  “Why?”

  She wasn’t sure if he was asking her or if he was questioning God. She touched his arm, waiting for him to look at her. “Because the evil was going to stop with her.”

  He shook his head, not understanding.

  She opened her door. “I’ll tell you about it on the way.”

  Will was waiting in his car when they got to the townhouse. “I didn’t see your car here. I didn’t want to go in without you, figured you’d be right behind me.”

  Dave nodded. “Thanks.” He held his hand out to Max. “Let’s go.”

  “You do the talking, Dave. I can’t.”

  They looked up in unison as Sam appeared at the front door. She closed it carefully behind her, gazing at them sorrowfully. She had been crying, it was obvious; but she stood quietly, calmly. Her eyes met Dave’s, and she nodded once, opening her arms to him.

  Seeing her, Dave felt something break inside him. He bounded up the steps, standing on the level below her as she cradled his head on her shoulder. She looked over to Max and Will, holding a hand out to them, and they stood there together for a while. No one said a word.

  Joey Derosa sat in front of John’s house for a few minutes, gathering his thoughts. The lights were on in the back of the building, but it was several minutes before he answered.

  He rubbed his eyes. “Yeah?”

  “John Andleman?”

  “Yeah,” he said again. “Who are you?”

  “Sergeant Derosa, Manchester Police.”

  John’s first thought was that he was in some kind of trouble; but as he took in the expression on the officer’s face, the hair stood on the back of his neck.

  Gently, Derosa asked, “Are you the son of Josilyn Anna Kane?”

  John’s eyes grew wide, and his voice trembled as he said, “My brother’s been staying here. Let me go get him.”

  Steven Patch was waiting impatiently outside ADA Marianne Armor’s office, drumming his fingers on the top of the briefcase he held on his lap and considering his options. Truth be told, he didn’t much care for the idea of representing Jack Seever, especially in what was sure to be a wildly unpopular case to defend; besides, he thought, the guy was as distasteful as a tick buried in your scalp. And every bit as useful.

  The media were going insane over this one. According to them, it was alleged–because it was always quite properly alleged–that Seever believed that Josilyn Kane was hiding his girlfriend, who was pregnant with his child. When she wouldn’t reveal his girlfriend’s location, he killed her. They hadn’t caught on to the abortion aspect of it yet.

  Of course, Jack had told him about the abortion, and about the Kane woman taunting him; but even if true, that wasn’t going to make for much of a defense.

  He shrugged to himself. It would be a circus for a few more days, and then Josilyn Kane would be tossed on the old-news pile with all the others. This stuff happened all the time. What Steven Patch really wanted to do was to get some kind of a deal–because obviously, the case couldn’t go to trial, with the guy being as guilty as sin–and get on with his day.

  Marianne Armor was standing in the doorway to her office. “Steve,” her smile was frosty, “come in.”

  “Good morning, Marianne. Tough times, huh?”

  “For Josie Kane, absolutely.” She sat at her desk, motioning to the chair across from her. “For me? I’ve never had such a slam-dunk death penalty case land in front of me before.”

  He was stunned. “Death penalty? This wasn’t a capital offense, Marianne. It doesn’t fit the statute.”

  “Oh, but it does. I have a witness who spotted your client dragging a blonde woman by her neck across his back yard. Then, said blonde woman winds up murdered in his front yard. I think that satisfies RSA six-thirty for kidnapping, don’t you?”

  He hadn’t thought of that. “Do you have the autopsy results?”

  “Got them right here.” With an expression of disgust, she opened the folder. “We’ll just hit the highlights. Twelve stab wounds, eight of those shallow incisions.” She looked over her glasses at him. “Five of those indicate he twisted the damn knife. In other words, he played with her, Steve.” She looked back to the report. “The other four were…One to her left side, one to her lower right abdomen, and two to her back.” She sighed. “Her back. From the blood pattern, and the trajectory, they were both on their feet for those.” She closed the folder and slid it across the desk to him. “He stabbed her in the back as she was trying to get away.”

  He studied the coroner’s diagram, his face slack with revulsion. “But none of these were imminently mortal.”

  “No. She bled to death on his front lawn. Nice and slow, while he twisted the knife inside her.” She tossed her glasses onto her desk. “I have eleven witnesses from the bar where she first encountered him that night, ready to testify that she ran out of there terrified, and that he was screaming and cussing at her as he chased her out. He was angry enough that the bartender called the police, fearing for her safety.” She smirked. “Rightfully so.”

  Steve was nodding thoughtfully, listening. It was worse than he had initially believed, far worse. Jack had left out a lot of the details.

  “DNA isn’t back yet, but I would hazard a guess that the chunks of skin under her nails will match your client, especially as he’s sporting quite the scratches on the left side of his face–although DNA is something of a redundancy here, because Seever is now the star of his own dashcam video.”

  She watched him shift uncomfortably, still studying the coroner’s report. “Guilt is not an issue here, Steve. Combine all this with the fact that he was screaming about what amounts to revenge for an abortion that his ex-girlfriend supposedly had, that he believed Josilyn Kane facilitated, and good luck finding a jury that lets him walk. Or even live.”

  He looked up. “Supposedly?”

  “His ex remains pregnant. There was no abortion–just the paranoid rantings of a misogynist.” She began to pale as she added, “Beyond the fact that he’s been immortalized by the dashcam, several people heard him screaming at her, ‘How does it feel to be aborted, bitch?’ When you see him, thank him for giving me the last line of my closing.”

  He felt as if someone had punched him. He remembered his smugness, his pride at getting Seever off the hook.

  As if reading his mind, she said, “What the hell was this guy doing out there, anyway?” She leaned forward, forcing him to look at her. “You wanted to be known as The Great Liberator. You get lots of extra clients when you earn that rep. And me?” She leaned closer. “I didn’t feel like going up against Schultz and his mollycoddling, tender mercies toward batterers–which everyone knows the basis of. He can’t be removed for anything he’s done to date, but he can be watched. And trust me when I tell you, he will be.” She sat back again. “Off the record for a minute?”

  He nodded.

  “What Schultz does–how extreme he can be in his biases–sometimes it makes me think, anyone else who facilitated like he does would go up on felony murder.” Frowning as she studied her notes, she asked, “Are you representing on the issue with the ex-girlfriend and the baby?”

  “No. I referred him to Mickey Demares.”

  “Terrific. Good job. Another candidate for incitement. I have to wonder how many women and chil
dren have been destroyed by what that guy does. Not to mention, what kind of rage he filled Jack Seever’s head with. One of my first cases as an ADA was May Walker’s murder, and wouldn’t you know it, her abusive husband was a client of Mick Demares.” She picked up a pen, tapping it on her hand. “Josilyn Kane was her advocate, come to think of it.”

  “Didn’t her husband get off with manslaughter?”

  “I was new then, playing ball. I’ve learned a few things since.” She pointed to a file cabinet across the room. “We’re averaging more than one homicide a month just this year from pissed-off exes, and I don’t know how many serious assaults, rapes, stalking…I think I’d like to research how many of these cases come from the clients of these father’s rights lawyers.” She raised her eyebrows as a thought occurred to her, and scribbled something on her pad. “You know that Mick will go for some kind of jailhouse-visitation agreement, when the fact is, your client needs his rights terminated. Let’s hope it doesn’t become an issue–the ex-girlfriend is married now to the father of her son.” She sighed, rubbing her forehead for a moment as she set the pad aside. “But, back to it. About your client.” She stared at him with her arms folded, waiting.

  He knew he had an obligation to try, and he despised it. “I was going to suggest manslaughter.”

  She was aghast. “Under what theory?”

  “Diminished capacity.”

  She held up her hand as he was about to continue. “Forget it. Sergeant Derosa’s dashcam was on your client from the moment he and Maxine Allen got there. Seever looks like he’s firing on all cylinders.” She leaned forward again. “Josie Kane was on the ground, ninety-five percent dead, and–on tape–he drops the knife and then kicks her in the face.”

  He visibly flinched. Seever hadn’t mentioned that, either. “I get it. Let’s talk second degree.”

  She sighed impatiently. “I’m going to bottom-line you. Fast-track this one with me, and I’ll sell first degree, if for no other reason than to spare Josie Kane’s loved ones. Avoid a media circus, let them go on with whatever lives they can make after something like this. But that’s it. Take it to trial, and I’m going for capital murder.” She held the folder up. “Look at the facts, Steve. I’ll win.” She tossed it down on her desk, and waited.