Vengeance

by George Willson

  CHAPTER TWO

  A Disenchanted Wife

  Yes, I’m retelling the story at this point, and I could tell you who the killer was, but I’ve been informed that this is a very bad idea, and if I keep you wondering throughout the story, you will keep reading. Or something like that. I just thought I’d point out why I kept Michaels’ killer deliberately vague like I did. As you will quickly discover, the fact that the killer is female plays into the bigger tale and was something we learned pretty early in the course of the investigation. So, I haven’t told you anything I didn’t know during the time this was going on back then.

  In the morning following the murder, Athena Michaels was driving home from her mother’s house in Monument, where she had allegedly spent the previous evening. Athena was a little younger than Hank with a pretty face that lit up a room when it smiled, short brown hair and blue eyes that until this day, had experienced very little in the way of tragedy. She had grown up sheltered in her parents’ house, and up to the point where she married Hank, she knew very little to nothing of the evils of the world. Ever since her father had died the year before, she had been traveling to her mother’s house once a week to help out around the house and staying the night so she didn’t have to drive back in the dark. Hank had married her for the clear reason that she was so kind and pure that she reflected very well on him as a professor and community leader. It could even be said that it was Athena that got Hank to where he needed to go just by being herself without knowing it. Yes, she was that kind of person.

  Bluffs was one of those little mountain towns that existed for the sole reason of existing in the shadow of the Rockies. Its residents loved their peace and quiet and waking up to a spectacular view. The streets were lined with little shops owned mostly by its residents because big box stores like Walmart didn’t see any profit in such a small town, even with its University, so none of them came here. At the same time, such a life made us happy.

  Athena turned onto her street, and upon seeing the ugly yellow hatchback parked in front of her house, her brow furrowed, not out of anger, but curiosity. She knew her husband, Hank, helped out his students, but rarely had she known of one to come to their house. She worried that someone might have needed help, and she wasn’t there to assist him as she felt was her place.

  She parked her car in the driveway, but rather than pull it immediately into the garage, as she usually did, she simply turned off the engine and walked to the car in front of her house. She noted the Bluffs University parking permit, which confirmed her suspicion that the vehicle belonged to a student. She felt of the hood and noted that it was quite cold, so it had been sitting here for awhile. As it was nearly ten o’clock, she wondered when this person would have arrived and why. She looked up and down the street, but no one stirred anywhere.

  She walked back to her car in the driveway, got back and started it up. She pressed the button to open the garage door and shifted car into drive to pull in. As the door trundled up on its rails, she saw Hank’s car still parked in its place. This was very strange indeed. He should have been at the college by now. She pulled into the garage, grabbed her overnight bag, and pressed the button to close the door. She got out of her car and touched the hood of Hank’s. Like the car out by the curb, his hood was cold, so he had been here all night. She wondered what could have gone wrong to create such a scenario, since only something very wrong would have allowed him to miss work.

  With a combination of curiosity and worry, she opened the door to the house and stepped inside. The first thing she noticed was the sound of the shower running in the bathroom. She set her bag down in the bedroom, pausing for a moment to notice the unmade bed and items knocked off the nightstand before she walked to the bathroom door.

  “Hank?” Athena said. “Is everything ok?”

  She pushed open the door and looked toward the shower. The curtain was open and water had puddled up on the floor around the base of the tub. Athena took a step into the room and then froze as she noticed the body still lying in the running water. Based on how she was lying there and her pallor, Athena knew she was dead, but why would a college girl be dead and naked in her shower?

  Hyperventilating, Athena backed out of the bathroom and fumbled in her pocket for her phone. Her fingers shook as she tried to maneuver the screen of the phone to call the police. She walked into the living room as she worked with her phone. No sooner had she pressed the talk button, than she looked up and saw what awaited her in this room.

  She barely heard the voice of the 911 operator when she dropped her phone as she stared over the body of her husband, dried blood caked all over his body from a dozen wounds, and a pool of it congealing on the floor around him. She fell to the floor and scooted away from him, squeezing herself against the wall, willing her eyes not to look. Her body shook as her emotions took hold and memories of days and years that she would never have came crashing down upon her, and the memories of every time she had touched and held him suddenly meant so much more since she would never have that again. Her stomach leapt into her throat, and she inhaled deeply as the situation finally crashed onto her consciousness until she was no longer able to contain the horror around her.

  She screamed out of anguish. She screamed out of fear. She screamed out of loss. The tears streamed to the floor until she fainted out of pure exhaustion and her mind wandered into her past.

  The last time she had seen Hank alive was in their garage the previous morning as he was leaving for work. He had been dressed in a two piece grey suit with a blue tie and white shirt which was very typical of how he dressed every day. He pressed the garage door button as he walked to his car, and Athena had been right behind him to see him off as she had done nearly every morning since they had been married with very few exceptions. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him while the door opened.

  Once the door hit its apex and the rumbling of the door’s motor pulling it along its tracks ceased, he pulled away. “I gotta go,” he said, smiling gently at her.

  She nodded. “Ok, I’ll miss you, Hank.”

  “I’ll miss you too, gorgeous. Be careful out there.”

  “I will,” she replied. “Have fun in this big house without me.”

  He smiled. “I’ll try.” He walked to the driver’s side of his car unlocking it with his keyfob as he approached. The headlights flashed briefly in response.

  “I love you,” she called to him.

  He turned to her and smiled. “I love you, too.”

  And that was it. She had stood in the doorway to the house as he pulled out and remotely closed the garage door from the car. The slow rumbling closure of the garage door blotting out her final image was like a closure to that part of her life, though she couldn’t have known that at the time. She was grateful that those were their last words together, but now with his death, there were so many unanswered questions.

  The police arrived without her help. The operator had used the GPS on Athena’s phone to find out where she had called from, and she had made her way back to the garage to open the door remotely without passing by her husband’s body to let them in. The two responding officers immediately called the situation in and escorted Athena outside the house to allow her to breathe and come around to the point that she could answer some basic questions.

  This was when I came into the picture. We kept her outside while we went over the living room, took what evidence there was, and wheeled out his body. The living room was fairly large for the house to be as small as it was. An end table was positioned at the end of the couch which extended the look of the hall that led to the bedrooms and a love seat which they had placed against the front wall parallel to the opening of the front door creating a small walkway between the end table and the love seat. Large twin windows adorned the front wall of the house, and a television stand with a satellite receiver, xBox, and DVD player rested against the wall with the door that led to the hall and there was another small walkway between that wall and the
end of the couch. The living room was separated from the kitchen by an open wall with a bar, and the dining area (I hesitate to call it a room) was to the left of the kitchen as viewed from the front door. The back door of the house was directly across from the front door in almost a straight line between the dining area with the table and pair of chairs and the kitchen.

  For evidence, honestly, the killer didn’t leave much for us to go on. No murder weapon, no footprints, no fingerprints, not so much as a stray hair. We combed every inch of the living room, kitchen, and dining area before I allowed Athena to come in and sit on the couch while we attended to the other victim in the bathroom. The scene was just as empty of evidence which showed us that the killer had put considerable thought into the crime and was very thorough about hiding their identity.

  About the time we got Ms. Yule loaded into a bag and wheeled out, I heard another voice trickle in from the living room.

  “Athena?” the female voice asked with considerable concern.

  Athena jumped up from the couch, ran to the strong, very fit woman standing in the doorway and threw her arms around her. The woman was Kathy Bracket. She was a little older than Athena, and in better physical shape than the majority of the police force. Her face was absolutely beautiful by any worldly standard, though pains of years past left it looking like it would retain nothing more than a serious expression, even if she smiled, with brown hair that stopped at her shoulders and blue eyes that would burn a hole in whomever crossed her. Compared to the petite Athena, Kathy was imposing. I listened from just outside the living room, waiting for my chance to take over the conversation.

  “Oh Kathy, I can’t believe it,” Athena whimpered wiping the tears from her eyes. Kathy’s serious expression had softened considerably to the way a nurse might look when delivering bad news, and her voice was gentle to try and calm Athena.

  “What’s going on?” Kathy asked. “I just looked outside and–”

  “Hank’s dead,” Athena said with a broken voice. She sniffled as Kathy appeared to take this in, her face a mixture of shock, worry, and thought.

  “Dead?” Kathy finally said, finding her voice. “How?”

  A long pause from Athena told me that this was my moment to jump in and find out about this newcomer. Habitually, I tend to look at everyone who shows up to a murder scene as guilty until proven innocent just because the guilty party generally lurks in the slightest of places, and I hate missing stuff like that. I also rather like to make an entrance, which they had setup just perfectly for me in that almost rhetorical question and failed answer.

  “Someone killed him,” I said taking a good look at the tall, rather imposing woman, whose look told me that I need a better manner to take with the death of her friend’s husband. I don’t concern myself with ceremony, really, I’m just very direct, primarily because I find that to be the best way to deliver any kind of information. I walked toward them dressed in a deep blue suit and tie, though I do like to envision myself in a long blue trenchcoat and fedora, but let’s face it, no one dresses like that anymore. I had my hands tucked into my pockets and approached them confidently as Kathy eyed me like a mother protecting her young, and Athena looked at me like the young hiding behind a parent.

  “I wasn’t aware Mrs. Michaels was expecting visitors,” I followed up.

  “This is, um…” Athena began before choking on her emotions again. Kathy extended her hand of her own accord.

  “Kathy Brackett,” she said humorlessly. “I live next door.”

  “Detective Thompson,” I told her. The whole introduction felt more like a face-off of competitors than an investigator learning someone’s name. Her grip was astonishing, and her gaze met mine like a python, holding me for just a moment before I broke off. There was time to dwell on it, really as we’d gathered what we could from the house, so it was time to see if Athena could tell me anything worthwhile now that she had had a chance to calm down.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions,” I asked her holding my hand out to indicate my desire to have her take a seat on the couch. Athena shook her head, which meant yes, and walked back to the couch to sit down. Predictably, Kathy followed and sat next to her. I looked disapprovingly at Kathy. This was not an ideal situation, as I would prefer to get individual testimonies untainted by each other. Together, they could feed off each other’s thoughts, and even worse, one answer for the other. Based on my assessment of Kathy so far, I really felt like she might be a problem in taking over to protect Athena from what she might perceive as aggressive questions. I think Athena noticed my look.

  “Can she stay?” Athena asked, though I could also say she begged. By stark contrast to her friend, Athena was quite sweet. While I thought Kathy would fold me in half if I let her, Athena would set a room at ease and call the nearest gentleman to her aid at the flutter of her eyelashes. My chivalrous side almost immediately agreed without a second thought, but I had to stick to the case and my procedural preference.

  “I’d rather speak to you alone,” I told her coldly.

  “I’d like her to stay,” Athena shot back just as cold. I was not in the mood for this sort of argument, so I thought I would just angle my questions and see how they both reacted initially. If I hit on anything sensitive, I figured I would at least get a reaction from one or the other.

  “Fine,” I said as nonchalant as I could. “Now, Mrs. Michaels, are you familiar with that car out there?”

  “No.” She answered without a glimmer of hesitation, so I had no doubt that she was telling the truth there.

  “It belonged to the young woman we found in your shower. Jody Yule. Do you know her?”

  “No. Is she a student?” Her blank expression and tone of voice spoke volumes which told me that she was completely clueless of this whole affair, or she was an exceptional actress. Time would tell which was the correct assessment.

  “She is. One of your husband’s students, actually. Were you aware that your husband was having an affair with Ms. Yule?”

  This was the question that I wanted a reaction to, since her reaction would tell me at the very least whether this was something she knew that might have been a factor in her motive if she had done it. It would also serve to give me a solid insight into their relationship. However, Athena’s face showed that she was naïve enough to not have considered this to be a possibility. I honestly couldn’t believe anyone would miss something that had to be obvious. I had seen cases of adultery before, and there were always signs that each person in a couple would see ahead of time to suspect the other from the obvious signs of strange smells and staying late to the minor things like changes in habits or convenient excuses. It was extremely rare for one person to be so completely in the dark to the activities of the other. So rare, in fact, that her reaction almost strengthened my idea that she was simply acting. The alternative was that she actually didn’t know, and however Mr. Michaels conducted himself must have been above reproach to hide such a thing from his wife.

  “No,” she finally said with such absolute conviction that I wasn’t sure if she confirmed my suspicion of her naivety or her acting skills. “Are you sure that’s why she was here?”

  I barely managed to stifle a chuckle, which still came through. I mentally noted that I may want to get ahold of her license or birth certificate later to make sure that Hank Michaels wasn’t guilty of statutory rape along with everything else to be with someone this dim. Then again, if he had to maintain an appearance of a happy marriage, perhaps he simply looked for someone impressionable and easy to fool. “Most psychology lessons don’t take place in the bedroom,” I quipped. “Not that I know of, anyway. She was the one in the shower, though we found all of her clothing next to the bed.”

  “That’s a little cold, don’t you think?” Kathy snapped, and I glanced up to see those razor blue eyes cutting me in half. Clearly, her sense of humor did not extend to this situation. I dropped the smile and grew cold in return.

  “Truth hurts,” I n
oted. Athena dropped her head and started the waterworks again. Part of me felt sorry for her, but I had to keep my distance. Something about this wasn’t right beyond the obvious.

  “Hank and I were in a happy, loving relationship,” Athena insisted through her tears, “why would he cheat on me?”

  “When was the last time you talked to your husband, Mrs. Michaels?” I asked, obviously needing to figure out who did this rather than judge anyone on their powers of deduction or discretion.

  She recalled being at her mother’s house last night at 10:10, knowing the time because of an old digital clock that hung in the hall of her mother’s house right next to her mother’s old school corded phone as it had done for a couple of decades. She had always stared directly at it right after dialing anyone’s number on that old phone.

  I asked her why she decided to go to a landline phone to make this call instead of using her cell phone, which she used to call us, so I knew she had one. Most people these days would have made the call from their bed on their mobile rather than taking the extra steps to walk into the hall of a house to use an ancient corded phone, especially in these days of unlimited usage and everything. It just didn’t ring logical to me. Her answer was right in line with everything else I had learned of her in that she was very much a creature of habit and tradition, and she wanted to use the old landline to call her husband because she had talked to him on it when they had first met. It was nostalgic for her, and overall, brought back some very good memories making the call that much better. Honestly, the way she spoke of it made me a bit ill, but I figured if that’s what worked for her, then I could still acknowledge that I’ve heard weirder and worse.