Chapter Three
Sitting in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to finish, I hear Chase up and about. His feet rushing from the bedroom to the bathroom in the hall and back again. One would assume he set his alarm, but after hours of gaming at night I doubt getting up was simple. I guess I do discipline, just by letting him suffer through the consequences of his actions. I wish other parents did the same, but like them I would bail Chase out of major drama in the blink of an eye.
“Please tell me there’s coffee?” Frankie drags herself into the kitchen, her eyes still half mast. Her sandy blonde hair looking like it was in a wind tunnel, all knotted and pointing in all directions.
“Of course,” I reply and take a sip of the delicious lifeline. “Chase make it?”
Footsteps slam on the floor above us, with various mumblings about being late.
“Nope.”
“Was he up all night playing that shooting game?” She sits next to me and I raise an eyebrow at her.
“Oh don’t think I know about you two and your midnight game fest.”
“I thought you were sleeping?”
“Yes, well a woman always knows.” She laughs a little at her own comment. Her hazel eyes brightening up with her smile. “Besides, I know when you’re not in bed.”
“Oh yeah, how is that?”
“The fact that you don’t roll me over when I snore and that I have covers?”
“I do not steal the covers, you kick them off.”
“Yes, I do, but that’s usually when you have the heat on inferno.”
“Not my fault you’re always hot.”
“I’m hot huh?” Shaking my head, I lean forward and give her a kiss.
“Seriously? That is so gross guys!” Laughing, I turn to see Chase standing in the doorway, looking worse for wear.
“Bus will be here soon.”
“But I can’t find my phone.”
“Maybe you should have gone to bed on time and woken up at a decent hour to find it.” Frankie leans back in her chair, a smug look on her face. “Or you could have just put it by the charging cable in your room. Oh wait, you lost those last week.”
“You are so not being fair Aunt Frankie,” he says with the most adorable pout on his face.
“Yes, well when you pay for the cables, the phone or the bill, you can argue with me.”
The bus honks its horn outside. Chase looks mortified as he rushes out the door mumbling something about hating us. It’s the age.
“He hates us again,” I mutter as I continue to indulge in my coffee.
“Yep, until he’s thirty he probably will.” She leans forward at the table, her hands wrapping around her mug. She’s got the serious thought look, or the coffee is wrecking her stomach. I can’t tell the difference sometimes.
“Ever think what he would be like if we were the only ones who raised him?”
“Frankie, I doubt Chase has a comparison chart in his bedroom with pros and cons of having been punished by me or my brother.”
“I mean if he was always ours,” she looks into her coffee and realization hits me. Right now would be a perfect time to create that black hole in Sweden or something and swallow the world up. Or just do it below me and watch me swim.
“You going to say something?”
“What’s there to say?”
“I’m a psychologist, there’s always something to say.” She looks up at me, the smile not reaching her eyes. They reflect my fear and mix with her own.
“We’re both too old.”
“You’re thirty and I’m thirty-two. I don’t think that’s too old, but that isn’t the only way.”
“Maybe not, but are we stable enough financially, emotionally, whatever-ally to handle another child let alone a baby? Not to mention the fact that we are not a traditional household. They might have some stupid rule that says we can’t adopt or have a kid because we’re together. Maybe they won’t like us because we’re not married and living in sin… even though according to other people we’re sinning by well being us.”
“I wouldn’t object to an older child, maybe a toddler? I just think Chase would be great as a big brother. Maybe it would do some good to have a brother or sister around. Not to mention we’re in a good place now. If you look at money, we’ll never have another child. Trust me, no one is ever financially ready or they wouldn’t be on my couch with stress coming out of their ears.” She stops and looks at me again as if trying to get support for her question.
“True, but I don’t want us to fall apart again when a new kid comes into the picture.”
“I doubt that will happen.” She shoots sarcastically at me.
“How do you know?”
“Because this one won’t be a blood relative’s child.” She blurts out before looking up at me with wide eyes. She can’t believe that came out of her mouth and neither can I. That comment hurt. I know it sounds petty, but right then I felt all the blame of our breakup on my shoulders. I thought we dealt with this issue, it was in the past. She stands and walks to the sink, looking out the window. I know she wants a big family, we both did. Life changes while you’re living it, I thought she knew that.
My cell phone breaks through the tense silence. I stare at the back of her head, willing her to turn around. When she refuses, I answer my phone.
“Steele.”
“I need you in the lab. I might have found something.” Victor sounds chipper for this early hour of the morning.
“I’ll be right there.” I stand up and head to the stairs.
“I know you didn’t stay in bed last night and I know the nightmares are back.” She continues looking out the window, her back to me. “You have to talk to me or someone else or history will repeat itself.”
“I’m not going to let that happen.”
“If you weren’t you wouldn’t have a locked office in the basement.”
“I promise, this is different.”
I head up the stairs and try to push the sound of her tears out of my head. I know she’s just scared, but I’m not pulling away. Every couple has secrets and this is mine to live or die by. I just don’t know how to talk about this, not yet. She always let me come to her when I was ready. Right now I feel like she’s pushing and I don’t know why.
***
Walking into the lab, I know Victor’s going to pick apart my emotions that are blatantly written all over my face. Looking around the room, the refrigerator hums to its own beat, the slabs are clean, everything looks normal. I wonder if that is a good thing, this normal. Is it really normal or is it my version of normal which is abnormal? I think I just confuse myself.
“I should have known you were here by the smell of smoke emanating from your ears,” Victor smiles as he walks past me to a small room on the other side, two coffees in hand. “You coming?” Following him into the walk-in closet, I see he’s turned it into his office.
“I thought you liked being around the bodies while you did paperwork?”
“Compromise to the man. I live alone in peace. I can eat and do what I please in here. They get their rules, lies about contamination and blah blah blah.” Victor hands me a large coffee before he plops his body into his new office chair. His desk, simple yet designer, if that is even possible.
“I thought you were a genius who didn’t bow down to the powers that be?”
Victor sips his coffee, slowly as if giving his brain time to think. I just watch him, his mannerisms, the way his eyes seem to focus on the nothingness of the walls.
“Just because those on high think they know better than me when I work in the trenches? They are so removed from the work they actually oversee, I doubt they would know a contagion if it was in their blood stream eating them alive. Yet, they hold the power over budgets and my job. So, I guess simply put even geniuses have battles to fight, Jazz. This battle isn’t one of them.” His attention turns to me and I can see the depth of pain in his eyes. Unsure of what fully caused it, my mind screams at me to find
out, but I don’t. It’s not my place to pry. He knew if this was bigger, more criminal, I would be all over it. I leave him be, because the world does not revolve around my need to know.
“Thanks for the coffee.”
“You’re welcome. I would have been here sooner, but they didn’t believe me when I said a plain latte. It was like a foreign language or something. Some people just like to be as boring in their lives as they are in their coffee,” he smiles at me. His pain still evident, but hidden deeper.
“Well, not all of us can carry on like you and not have our asses handed to us.”
“Hmm, we that’s due to my ability to deal with a dead body like no other.”
“Should I be afraid of you?”
“Only if you come between me and my morning coffee concoction!”
“So what was so important you pulled me away from my morning with Frankie?”
“You have every morning with Frankie, so be thankful for that.” Placing my coffee down on the table, I realize I am going to break my one rule to rule them all - don’t pry.
“You gonna tell me what’s going on?” He leans back in his chair, pulls open a drawer and tosses some papers over to me. Ignoring the fact that he almost spilt my coffee all over me, I look down at the papers. My eyes float across the page, but the words fail to sink in. Disbelief runs through me, how is this possible when everything seemed to be okay?
“When?”
“Two months.”
“What the hell, Victor! You should have told me.”
“And deal with the lovefest you have going on, spare me please.”
“We’re your family, you should have told us.”
“No, I didn’t. It’s because we’re family that I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t need any of your prying into my life or trying to help me fix it. Some things are not meant to be fixed.”
He’s right. Some things are best to let go and move on from, even if it is something we so desperately want to hold on to. Like writing for me. I want it more than I could ever express, but I drove the road less traveled by and it turned out to be a dead end. That’s life.
“She move out?”
“Nope. She moved him in seeing as he’s the baby’s daddy.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Some dive hotel. I’ll get it figured out eventually.”
“You’re staying with us.”
“Right, did you miss the part of not wanting to be around shiny, happy people right now?”
“If you think we’re shiny and happy all the time you need to lay off the funny pills from the corner store.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“This isn’t about me. We’re family, so get your shit together and get to the house. Chase would love some company. He needs help in some science class and maybe you understand this new addition by subtraction stuff.”
“Science I’m all in, but you sic math on me and I swear you’ll wake up with a new face, no identifiable markings, no prints and no teeth. Got it?”
“I repeat, do not piss off the guy with the medical degree.”
“Among other degrees.”
Seeing the light come back to his eyes a little, I turn the conversation back to the more serious nature of finding the murderer.
“Now, you going to tell me why you called me here?”
Leaning back once again, Victor pulls out a folder from the previous drawer. He tosses it on the desk towards me, this time he hits my coffee and a bit spills out. I feign my disgust with the wasting of nature’s most precious resource.
“Seriously, work on your aim.”
“My aim is fine thank you very much.”
“For some reason I see that as a step into the TMI area.” Opening the file I look over some of the notes written in what must be a new language of scribbles or chicken scratches. “What am I looking at here, Vic?”
“Mother’s body was clean, nothing out of the ordinary. I mean she had several surgical scars, breast implants with serial numbers, nose job and a few lifts and tucks. Scars never die, no matter how small they are.”
“Addicted to plastic surgery, we can check out the doctors.”
“Already spoke to them when I verified the serial numbers. Well liked and on the schedule for liposuction. There was no love lost between Mrs. Johnson and her doc.”
Flipping through the pages, trying to make sense of the mother’s chart, I finally cave and move past it. Seeing the son’s photo, I pause. The words are clearer here.
“Anything from the boy?”
“Quick, simple motion like I’ve told you before. No defensive wounds. No other injuries. It was just a quick lights out.”
Seeing Mr. Johnson’s photo in the upper right hand corner, I stop. His face looks different when not covered in blood, peaceful, almost sweet.
“Father?”
“See this is where it gets a bit interesting.” My interest peaked, I look up at Victor who puts his stupidly expensive shoes on his desk. “Pops fought back.” Flipping through the papers, I once again try to decipher something, but I must be dumber than a box of hammers because none of this makes sense.
“Explain?”
“His nails and left hand were broken. Nails, I would assume from trying to claw at his attacker.”
“That’s unusual.”
“If you know you’re dying, you fight like hell. That brings me to his hand, it was broken backwards. Whoever did this made sure to let dear old dad die a slow and painful death.”
“Stab wounds?”
“Too many to count and the surrounded edges too damaged to get a good impression for a knife comparison. That being said he must have nicked himself during the barrage. I found a different blood type in the mutilation. Might help lower the pool a bit.”
“Anything under the nails?”
“Nope, your assailant must have been wearing something to cover his neck completely.”
“So, you’re telling me that we once again have nothing to go on? Why should this case be any different?”
“Well, firstly, you are the detective. It’s your job to find the evidence to go on, I just analyze what we have. Secondly, we’ve solved cases with nothing but a hooker’s word and a dress.”
“Doesn’t mean it was easy.”
“Nothing worth solving ever is.”
“Will and I have a few things to investigate further.” I stand up, finish the delicious coffee and toss the cup in the trash. “See you at home?” Victor simply nods at me and I leave his office.
I can tell he dislikes having taken me up on my offer. It was for the best, but he is too proud to see it. He loves his soon to be ex-wife too much. High school sweethearts, now defunct failures. I’m sure he’ll come up with some scientific reason for the break up beyond an affair and a pregnancy. People have always told me we are never given more than we can handle. I think those people are either mentally unstable or high all the time.
***
Walking up the steps to the private school, I feel the hair stand on the back of my neck. Those uniforms, the strict rules and the absolute ignorance to life outside of these cement walls. Walking through the heavy double doors, Will continues to talk about something with his car being in the shop again. Kids run from room to room and dash from lockers when the bell rings through the building.
“Maybe I should look into a new car? Or a used one? I never really wanted to spend the cash ya know?” His words pull me out of my self induced haze.
“What?”
I turn back to Will, his hand on the doorknob leading to the principal’s office. “I was asking if I should buy a used or new car?”
“My mother always said to buy what you could afford.”
He pulls the door open and I walk inside.
“Well, if I finance it, technically I can afford anything.”
“Says the man with debt.” Walking up to the counter, the place looks more like a prison than a school office. The elderly woman behind the counter, her
glasses on the top of her nose, chain attached to the sides, white hair up and a cardigan sweater - stereotypical office administrator.
“Excuse me ma’am, Detective Steele, this is my partner Detective Everts. We’re here to see Principal Miller.”
The woman looks over the bridge of her glasses and stares at my badge. She turns her attention to Will and he stares blankly back. I elbow him slightly, he pulls his badge out and holds it for her to read.
“You can have a seat. He’ll be with you in a moment.”
Sitting in the uncomfortable metal and plastic chairs reminds me of my childhood. I was always in a principal’s office. Not for being the one who started it, but always the one who finished it. Shifting nervously in my seat, my leg bounces uncontrollably.
“You look like a kid about to be suspended.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Should have known you were a troublemaker.”
“I took bullies down a peg, after the gum was in my hair of course.”
“Ah, one of those.”
“One of what?”
“The type of girl who has to finish the argument, get the last word in.”
“Or knee in my case.”
Will crosses his legs calmly and I smile at his unconscious reaction. It’s been nice having a partner and not face the underbelly of society by myself. It’s different.
“My oldest is going to be in high school soon.”
“You’ve got the gun already. You just need the ear plugs.”
“Forget the ear plugs, I need to take the damn phone away. She acts like every text is the end of the world and she has to respond right away. Not to mention, I have no idea what the new app for conversing is or if she writes in 140 characters or less. I’m at a loss.”
Melting Steele Page 4
