“Mommy,” I say to the empty room around me. My voice weak, fear evident, pain everywhere, but no matter how loud my voice seems to my ears - one thing is true. She isn’t coming.
***
Blinking my eyes, I can see the baseboard of my bedroom wall. Curled up in the fetal position on the floor, my face tight from the tears and my body sore from thrashing in my dreams. Forcing myself to sit up, I lean back against the bed. My nightmares are getting worse and I don’t exactly know how to handle that. I don’t want to involve Frankie in this, but I’m sure this is turning into the same fight we had when my brother died. I close up, and I know she’s noticed it. I just can’t worry her. Not until there’s something to be worried about, right?
Pulling my knees into my chest, I try to calm myself. My mother did this a lot, when she was sad or overwhelmed. She would sit on the floor, stare at the wall, eyes focused on nothing, and breathe. Deep breaths, count them if you need to. Just let them out slowly and attach the stress of the day with them. It never worked for her, her desk always piled to the nines with papers or to-do lists, but she tried. One of the few times she did anyway.
My cell phone dances across the nightstand, and my arm seems to move on its own to grab it. My eyes glance across the screen. I know I have to answer, but I don’t want to. Yet, I do.
“Steele,” I say into the receiver. I hear a slight rustling sound on the other end. Sounds like Chase when he is asking Frankie what to say, even though he was calling to ask permission for something. He’s gotten smart at playing each of us off each other. Took forever to realize if one of us said no, we meant it. I love it though. It means I’m alive and living.
“Detective?” I hear through the phone and I am reminded of where I am.
“Yeah Will, what’s up?”
“You were right about Kaley’s room. I found her diary with some rather interesting passages.”
“Interesting like she was complaining about her Daddy issues, or interesting like you are freaking out about what teenage girls talk about?”
“Daddy issues.” There’s a slight pause on the other end and I swear I can feel Will’s brain working a mile a minute.
“Yes all daughters write things in their diary that you might never know about. No that doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent. Finally, no you will not and cannot ask your daughters if they have a diary, write in one, need to talk to you about something or whatever else in going on in that brain of yours.”
“But…”
“But nothing. You don’t want to do that. Keep tabs sure, but let them come to you. Do not be that helicopter parent that hovers so much that you lose your kid. Happy medium, Will. Now, bring that thing to the house and I’ll have coffee ready.”
“I’m at the office.”
“Then leave it.”
Hanging up the phone, I turn my attention back to my shaky hands. My grandmother had hands like mine. Mom and I always spoke about how the issues grandma had skipped a generation and smacked me in the face. It was always a good laugh over coffee. If you make a fist, the shaking would stop, but then you look like you want to punch someone out. That’s what my grandmother told me. She always looked angry, but when you turned your back she would stick her tongue out and make faces. She wasn’t always angry, just in pain.
I guess getting dressed is an important thing to do before Will comes in and sees me in all my nightmarish glory. My bones, muscles, tendons and all the other crap I never paid attention to in biology class hurt as I stand up. I wish I could just go back to sleep, but what help would that be. My brain can’t shut off and the demons in my mind take over when I can’t fight them back.
Getting dressed with yesterday’s jeans and a new shirt, I use the bathroom. My reflection, it’s a sad and pathetic excuse for being me. At this point makeup wouldn’t help cover up the dark circles or even give some color to my skin. Not like I know how to use it anyway. Just a waste of cabinet space. Not to mention being a detective, chasing down a perp in the rain, kind of hard with mascara rolling into your eyes. I’m lucky I have clean clothes the way I’m going. Blame the girlfriend for that or rather, thank her.
The ringing of the doorbell signals Will is here. My ugly mug will have to do, not like I’m supposed to impress someone. Heading to the kitchen, I pull the door open and come face to face with a Will, a book and a stack of papers. Imagine a game of Jenga, with lots of loose pieces and you have to pick one, but it wobbles as you even move the oxygen molecules near it. That’s what Will looks like right now.
“Need some help?” I offer, but I know he’ll decline. He’s a man, they always decline when they need help and expect it when they don’t.
“That would be great!” Or not. My understanding of men decreases by the minute, or Will is just not the average male. I’ll go with that. I grab some of the papers so he can actually see where he’s going.
“Thanks.” He walks in and drops the rest on top of my notes and Frankie’s file on the table before dropping into a seat.
“No problem,” I close the door, “mind telling me what I’m looking at?”
“The life and documented times of Kaley Johnson. We found her laptop as well, tech’s combing through that right now.”
“Okay. Coffee?” He simply nods in response to me and I grab the old coffee maker to begin the long process of facing the day.
“There is so much in this… book.”
“We women like to air our grievances. Most of us do it in print.”
“Well, you were a girl, how did you do it?”
“Last time I checked, I still was,” laughing a bit to myself as I grab the mugs and pull the coffee out. “I played whatever sport I could get my hands on and I wrote some short stories.”
“Diary?”
“No, I was bullied badly. So, it was all horror and all cathartic.”
“Remind me not to upset you.”
“Nah, that’s all behind me. Besides, the worst bully I had was killed while trying to escape a felony.”
“You don’t sound too upset.”
Pouring the fresh coffee into the two mugs, I think about those words. Should I feel bad? Any life lost can be tragic, but for someone who was tormented for ten years of her life, why should I feel anything? Does that make me a horrible person? I never hated the person, just really didn’t want to be picked on. I never fought back with fists, it was always words. Always personifying the behavior so I could try to understand it. I still haven’t.
“I feel indifferent.”
“But you said you wrote…” I cut him off by putting the mug full of piping hot coffee in front of him. “Thanks.”
“Yes, I wrote about the stupid people. I wrote about the cruel behavior and I always made those people not have happy endings. I never killed the bullies. I didn’t put their faces to the characters. It was always abstract, trying to rationalize the irrational. I don’t know if I have it in me to kill…”
The words never exit my mouth. I do have it in me to kill someone. I already have. Mother taught me not to lie. Yet, part of me still thinks I can’t kill in cold blood.
“You’re not capable of cold blooded murder, Jasmine.”
I look to Will as if he was reading my mind. His eyes glaze over and I can tell he’s gone back to a place I don’t ever want to visit. Yet, regardless of where our worst fears took place, we both feel the same.
“We did what we did to survive. No more, no less.” He continues, sipping his coffee. Looking over the piles of papers sitting in front of us, I decide to change the subject. I don’t want him to dwell on the past, even though my brain has a room there. No matter how far you move forward, some things you have done will haunt you forever. Just accept it. I do.
“So, she have a boyfriend?”
“Not that I can tell from this stuff. Would she have one at fourteen?”
“Who knows? Remember the case a month ago of the thirteen year old who had a virtual relationship.”
“Craigslist mu
rder yeah. Her parents should have been all over her though.”
“Right, because it’s easy to figure out who your child is texting, posting, tweeting or whatever new thing is there. It isn’t easy. You know what Jennie likes to do?”
“Cheerleading.”
“Beyond that? When is she online? Facebook? Who talks to her?”
His face falls a bit and I can tell reality has hit home. It’s an interesting feeling as an adult to realize you are no longer in tune with what’s going on. You have to put blind faith in the people you have protected from the time they could walk. You have to find trust in someone who has yet to truly understand the darkness the world has to offer. Sure, there’s beauty out there as well, but the other is so tempting. Like my mother said to me when I started learning how to drive, it isn’t you I don’t trust. It’s everyone else out there. That’s how I feel with Chase. He’s still young, but so adult in the same breath.
“That’s for making this a depressing morning.”
“Could be worse.” I shrug, even though I know in my gut the trip down the rabbit hole has just begun. This is going to get worse. Moving some papers around, I pull out Frankie’s file on Kaley and hand it to Will.
He leans back to read it, while I pick up the infamous teenager diary. Part of me feels like I’m violating Kaley’s privacy. I know Frankie talks about writing down your feelings and letting the emotions out on page, not in real life. I don’t really write anymore. Nothing but the reports about who stabbed who and how. Besides, if I wrote a novel I think it would be banned for too much gore. How else can one expect to deal with the trauma from eighteen years of torment?
Landing on one page, my heart crawls up into my throat. I feel it beating harder in my esophagus as if to choke me to death. Staring at the words, smeared by tears, I force myself to hold everything in. Force myself not to connect and go back there. Yet, I do.
“Her father?” Will’s voice reeks of disgust. I simply nod, my eyes glued to the page in front of me. I hear the file hit the piles of papers and I swear I can feel his eyes on me. “Find something?”
Taking a deep breath, I decide to read the page.
“He did it again, worse this time. Mom was working late, Danny was sleeping. I locked my door but he picked it. I don’t know what else I can do to stop him. I’ve told mom and Principal Miller. Doctor Ryan tried to help but my mom got in the way. Grandma and grandpa spoke to mom and they all think I’m dreaming this. I don’t know what I’m going to do… I’m six weeks late.”
Leaning back in the chair, I flip to the next page, but it’s empty.
“She was pregnant.” Will’s spews out of his mouth like a snake spitting venom. It’s harsh, angry and filled with disgust.
Flipping through more pages, I stop on one page. The words seem to chill me to the bone.
“I finally had the courage. He said he’d take care of it. Danny and I will be safe. Miller will handle my father. I paid him the only way I could.”
“You don’t think…” Not only has it gotten worse, but we’ve pretty much just thrown ourselves off a cliff into a pile of smut. I can see Will is fighting his disgust.
“Yea, I do.” I state matter of factly. It’s a classic case of abuse. No one listens. Those that try to help are bombarded with lawyers and legal jargon. In the end, a sexually abused individual feels nothing towards sex. It’s a means to an end. It’s payment, if it needs to be. Kaley was desperate and that leads us to this.
“How could it get that bad? We’ve got laws to protect this from happening.”
“Yes, but where there is a will there is a way. Even if Frankie believed Kaley, all it takes is one person saying the kid was lying and it becomes a game of he said she said.”
“But Frankie…”
“It’s one person on one side of the aisle. This is why I hated psychology. It isn’t about helping the victim as much as it is red tape, old men with old ideas of society and no one wanting to fix the system.”
“So, they had money to hire any doctor anywhere to say she was lying.”
“And she had a mother denying the truth about what happened.”
“If she wasn’t dead already, I swear I’d make sure we buried her with charges.”
I’ve seen the rage in his eyes before. Frankie held that once. When we spoke about everything from our pasts. That darkness that seemed to want to take over her soul, even if there was nothing she could do. Karma has been quick and precise. Yet, she felt this intense need to exact revenge on something that was no longer an issue, at least not a living breathing one. Nightmares were a different story.
“I get it, Will. I do, but you can’t let your disgust for them cloud your judgment.”
He looks me over, calmly at first. I can see his mind working quickly to assess why I am not as outraged at the situation as he is. Slowly, like my mother when I told her, realization hits. He pales. His mouth wants to say something, but I hold up my hand. This is not the time nor place for this conversation. I need to turn this back around to the case at hand.
“I think we need to have another conversation with Miller. This time down at the precinct with him in cuffs for statutory rape.”
“Does she state point blank she paid him with sex?”
“No, but we’ve convicted rapists with circumstantial evidence before.”
It’s true, we have. Doesn’t mean I feel good about that statistic. Always made me queasy to think about a trial based on this type of evidence. You can mentally connect the dots, but I keep going back to experience and interpretation. What if what I see is different than what you see? What if what I see is wrong? Lots of questions that cannot be afforded to an officer of the law. We just find the evidence and try to connect the dots. Lawyers try to convince a jury of said dots and the people vote to see if it holds up.
Will’s cell phone rings and he grabs it. Staring at his face, I know something’s up, but my mind wanders to the court of public opinion. If this case gets out there, we will be raked over the coals for not protecting her. Frankie will be called everything under the sun for no apparent reason. Her degree, her professionalism, her personal life will all be spoken about online. No filters, no responsibility and no lawyers to present all sides equally. Just groups of random strangers, screaming about how she should be punished. Sadly, I can see all the negative clear as day pointing her sinful ways clouding her ability to be a good doctor. My skin crawls at the thought. She’s an amazing woman who followed the law, but that doesn’t matter when people are hurt. You will always be to blame if the outcome isn’t what the public wants. What scares me is the fact that I cannot stop it, protect her or Chase from it. I’m helpless to the control some fool has anonymously in their living room. I am a control freak and I cannot do a damn thing.
“We have to go.” My eyes meet his once again and my gut screams at me. I know what he is going to say before he has to.
Kaley’s been found.
***
The park is beautiful this time of year. The snow has long since left this place, but the evidence it was once here lies in the lush grass. The slight hill ahead reminds me of the days my brother and I would roll down them in a race with no clean winner. Who could call out ‘I win’ when you couldn’t stand up or see straight? Those memories still bring a smile to my face and a warmth to my heart. I should bring Chase to the park one day, tell him about those days gone by.
As I get closer to the greener tree though, my smile fades and my heart sinks. I don’t want to share this pain with anyone. It’s time to close off to the world and focus on what’s in front of me.
“How long?” I ask Victor as he approaches me.
“Less than ten hours, but I’ll know more after I do a full exam.” His eyes are empty, lost and empty. My own must look the same. Except mine must be gray, they always change when hiding emotions. Pushing past him, my feet drag me to the base of the tree. I hear Will’s and Victor’s footsteps as they follow behind.
Kaley sit
s, legs crossed, arms folded on her lap, makeup and hair styled. She looks like a beauty pageant contestant, perfect in every detail down to the pressed school uniform. Leaning down, I grab a latex glove my jacket pocket and snap it on. I move her hair slightly revealing her neck. No signs of strangulation. No bruising. Nothing.
Pulling her lips apart, her mouth is empty, teeth cleaned. Sliding up the hem of her skirt, the bruising begins to show itself. Moving it up further, it’s evident she was sexually assaulted recently. Pulling the clothing down to hide the violence, I look around the area. Wide open. No cameras. Loads of people who are busy with their families. In other words, no witnesses.
“Will, maybe you should visit Mr. Miller at work. See if we can get a search warrant for his place with what we’ve got.”
He simply nods at me and his expression is full of thanks. He’d stay if I asked him to, but why bother. All he sees right now are his little girls. I don’t care how hardened a Marine he used to be. He’s a father. Once you’re a parent, scenes like this change radically.
“Who has the balls to dump a body in one of the most exposed areas of the park?”
“One who wants her to be found quickly,” I mumble to Victor. He’s struggling with this one. Everyone had hope Kaley would be found alive. That is the best and worst thing to have as a human being - hope. I never had it for her. Facts, human behavior and experience made that decision before we even had an accurate timeline.
“So they had to respect her, right?”
“No, a self-respecting human being doesn’t rape and kill a young woman before her life has a chance to start.”
“You know what I meant.”
Standing up I stand in front of Victor, my jaw set, muscles tight.
“No, I don’t know. This wasn’t about respect. It was about control. It was about ownership. Whomever did this wanted to preserve her exactly as they saw her. This has nothing to do with respect. No assault is.”
Victor looks me over, his eyes search mine for some reason behind my outburst. I give him nothing. My poker face forces him to step back.
Melting Steele Page 6
