I got all three books and set them on the large woven hamper type basket I have beside the couch. Makes a great end table and provides storage.
I retrieved my tea, sat down, put the tea next to the books, grabbed the top book and flipped it open, bound and determined not to allow myself to be freaked out.
It said #3 on the first page. I assumed that meant the third book in the series, so I huffed, exchanged it for the right one, flipped #1 open, and started to read.
I feel stupid writing this down. I’m not the type of person that writes in a journal. This journal is tantamount to a confession, and I’m smarter than that.
The problem is human nature. People don’t keep their mouth shut. Crimes are solved by some asshole shooting off his mouth. CSI shit is useful after the fool is caught.
I am writing this down for two reasons. So I don’t miss anything. So I don’t lose it.
If you are reading this (I assume it is you Joseph) I am under arrest, or in a psych ward. Either way – sorry for not confiding in you. I knew that you would be forced to turn me in and I couldn’t do that to either of us.
As I turned the page my front door almost exploded. Someone pounded so hard I was shocked that the poor thing stayed on its hinges.
Pissed, I stood up, setting the journal on the sofa, and stomped to the door. True, I was pissed, but not pissed enough to slam the door open without looking through the peephole first.
Joseph.
What the hell? How did he know where I live? Was he following me?
I was just about to panic when he said, “Cara, open up. I know you’re in there, I heard your progress all the way to the door. I saw your shadow when you looked through the peephole. Open the damn door!”
Like I was born yesterday? Open the door for this whacko that was following me from a dead man’s house. He is mentioned in the journal of another apparent whacko and I’m supposed to invite him in for tea? Not an ice cube’s hope in Hell that was gonna happen.
I turned, this time being more circumspect about the noise level, and tiptoed toward the kitchen, where I’d left my cell phone on the counter.
Joseph said, “When you dial 911, tell dispatch Detective Joseph Branden is at your door and would like entry.”
That stopped me in my tracks. A bluff? A dare?
Guess ol’ Detective Branden isn’t as smart as he makes himself out to be. I had no intention of dialing 911. I dialed the non-emergency number so they wouldn’t tape record me making a fool out of myself.
On the third ring, “Molly Sturgis.”
“Hi Molly. My name is Cara. I have a brother that works for the department. Rory O’Flynn. I was wondering if you could help me. I have a guy at my door that claims to be a detective. His name is supposedly Joseph Branden.”
“I know Rory. Is the guy at your door tall? Gorgeous? Intense? Loud?”
“Yep.”
“That is the famed Detective Branden. I suggest you let him in. He gets cranky when people don’t do as they are asked, and if he finds out you have a brother on the force, he might take it out on him. He is a great detective, but he can be a challenge.”
“Thanks Molly, gotta go.”
I hung up the phone and ran back to my door. I peeped through the hole again. The good detective was not looking amused.
The door wasn’t quite open when he pushed his way past me and entered my apartment. Fine. He’s a jerk. That will put the whole good-looking thing in perspective.
“Sorry to push my way into your apartment, but having a cop standing outside your front door can complicate your life, if only to bring you to the attention of that nosey bitty in the apartment across from yours. I’m pretty sure she’s the type that initiates a neighborhood watch program to have an excuse to be in everybody’s business. Is she always like that? She was watching me through her peephole.”
Ok, so maybe he wasn’t a jerk after all.
I decided to play the innocent and see where we went, “So, what can I do for you Detective Branden?”
“Please, call me Joe.”
“I can do that. What can I do for you Joe?”
“You can give me the book from Louis’s place. No one has any use for it but me. If his brother gets it, he’ll just throw it away, and years of Louis’s work will go down the drain. I don’t want that to happen.”
“You. A cop. Asking me to break the law and hand over things to you that are not my property. Things I have no authority to give you? What then? You arrest me for it? I’m sorry, that doesn’t work for me.”
“No one knows about the book. No one cares about the book. No one is going to be arrested.”
“No one knew about the book? What about you?”
“I guessed, you confirmed. That is what we cops do. Good cops document everything, even if not officially, so that the defense can’t get their hands on it, so, naturally, I assumed that Louis was documenting as he went.”
The light finally dawned, “Louis was a cop?”
“Retired.”
“Oh!” Well, that explains that. Not. “Wasn’t he awfully young to be retired?”
“Medical release. More like a forced medical retirement. He got shot. Long story. I need you to give me that book.”
“I’m sorry I can’t do that, but I doubt that Louis’s brother will have a problem giving them to you. He doesn’t seem overly attached to anything of Louis’s.”
“Steven is an ass. He is a couple of years younger than Louis. They were raised in a small town. Louis was the jock. The high school hero. Steven could never match up. After high school, Louis enlisted, did his time, got out and decided that he wanted to be a cop. Migrated here. Steven thought Louis should move back home. Their parents were killed in a boating accident. Steven didn’t even call until after they were buried. His excuse was that Louis didn’t want to be home, had no interest in anything that happened at home.”
“That’s just so wrong on so many levels. I’m not sure I want to work for this guy.”
“If you don’t work for him, he’ll just hire someone else, and they may not be as respectful of Louis’s stuff.”
I raised my eyebrows, “That’s true. A little self serving, on both of our parts, but we’ll go with it.”
Joe has a beautiful smile. He gifted me with one, and continued, “I’m not gonna push this. I think that you’ll do the right thing. I’m not asking for anything that would be of value to any other person, I just want the book.”
I looked at the floor, “Actually, there are three.”
His surprise was evident, “What?”
“I brought them home with me. There are three. Brown leather journals. I’d just started reading the first one when you tried to knock down my door.”
He pulled a face, “Knock down your door? Isn’t that an exaggeration?”
“Either we can agree that you pounded on the door, didn’t knock, or I will forever be suspicious of steroid use. Roid rage and all that.”
He had a lovely, low, sexy, laugh. “No steroids. This beer gut is all natural.” He rubbed his hand over his perfectly flat stomach.
“I can’t give you the journals, but if you like, you can take a look at them. I just made myself a cup of tea. Would you like one? I have soda or juice if you’re not a tea person.”
“Just some water would be great.”
“I have to warn you. If you take the opportunity to help yourself to the journals and walk out the front door while I am getting you some water, I’m calling the police and the news media, and maybe even your mom.”
“The police, no problem. The news media, who really believes what they read these days, a 20 second sound byte and it would be over, but my mom? That’s low.”
“I’m just sayin’”
“I won’t walk out the door with them. They give me a great excuse to spend time in the presence of a really interesting woman.”
My turn to blush. I took refuge by putting my face in the fridge while I retrieved his bottle of water.
&nbs
p; We’d been reading along for about an hour when AJ showed up. I was practically sitting on Joe’s lap, but it was the only way we could both read the journal at the same time.
I tensed, waiting for AJ to react badly.
He didn’t.
He was perfectly fine, which made me a little bit unfine. Couldn’t he at least pretend to be a little bit jealous? Am I really that undesirable. You can bet we will address that later.
I introduced them, explaining that we were reading the journal. AJ smiled, went to his room, took a shower, and came out about fifteen minutes later. He was still fine. Wow. Guess I really am that undesirable. Dammit!
He went out the door, and Joe and I continued to read.
About half an hour later, AJ was back, juggling several bags of food.
What a great guy!
The three of us sat at the coffee table and munched while Joe and I each tried to figure out just what the journals had to tell us. When the silence got too loud, Joe started to explain.
“Louis was my partner. He was one of the most dedicated cops I’ve ever met, and really smart. A few days ago, he was driving home at about three in the morning and drove off the road. You know where that really bad intersection is, down toward the outlets. It’s famous for the number of people that have been killed there, and yet, they haven’t done a damn thing about it. Anyway, Louis was one more victim of bad engineering.”
AJ listened carefully. “Man, I’m sorry for your loss. That’s tough.”
“Yeah. It is. Louis was retired, but when you’re a cop, you never really leave the job behind. He was working his way back onto the force. He was shot in the line of duty about 18 months ago. The doctors had just recently told him that there was a chance that he was strong enough to come all the way back. He was excited. Being a cop was all he really cared about. The whole time he’s been away, he’s still been working on a case. That’s what the journals are about.”
AJ looked confused, “I’m lost again. I’m still not sure how you got in the middle of all this Cara.”
I jumped in, “Billy, the priest that helped with Bernie, called this morning.” Was that really only this morning?
I continued, “He asked me to help sort out the belongings of a guy he knows from church. The guy turned out to be Louis. His brother Steven can’t be bothered to come to town, so he needs someone to sort everything, just like Teagan and I are doing for Bernie. Joe is, I’m sorry, was, Louis’s partner. When I went over to the condo today, to sort things out, I found three journals. Joe showed up about that time and asked me to hand over the books. I told him I couldn’t do that. He ran my tag number, and came over here to get the books. I still wouldn’t let him have the books, but we decided to just sit here and read them.”
“Ok, I guess I’m up to speed. Can I ask what the journals have to say?”
Joe’s turn to explain, “Every cop has a theory, a process, or a way that they work through a case. Louis believed that there is no such thing as a random murder, at least not multiple murders. He was adamant that the same person or people killed several young women that have died in the last several years. He believed that if you look at enough of the minutia of a person’s life, you would eventually find that little tiny fact that puts together the crime. You’ll see where the life of the victim and the life of the murderer intersect. Louis was convinced that people simply are not random, and that there is always a hook. He was in the process of doing very detailed research on each of the murdered girls, trying to find the tiny little thread that pulled them together.”
AJ looked at me, “Sounds dangerous. Why are you, a non-cop, involved?”
“I’m not involved, I’m just cleaning out Louis’s condo. Once his brother Steven gives me permission to hand the journals over to Joe, I’m out of the loop. I was just giving Joe a head start, and I’m nosey.”
AJ pulled a face and said, “It’s none of my business, but I’m not sure I like you being that close to anything to do with a serial murderer.”
I pulled a face, “Statistically, your chances of being killed by a serial murderer are pretty damn slim. Think about it. If I’m going to be involved in a statistical anomaly, it’s going to be winning the lottery, not getting wiped off the face of the planet by some whacko. You’re only allotted one outrageous anomaly a lifetime, and this lifetime, the lottery is mine.”
AJ was calm and patient, “Can we talk about it later?”
I smiled, “Sure.”
We talked about the journals, and all the detail they seemed to cover but didn’t come up with anything interesting. The conversation meandered from one topic to the next. We covered everything from Rory’s being a fellow cop, to dinner wine, to roller-skating.
When we were done munching, AJ stood and started to clear away the refuse from our impromptu meal. After several trips back and forth, he bid us a good night, and said he had work to do on his computer.
Joe and I were at the door when he said again, “I just need to go over all this stuff once more and then once more again and keep looking at it till I find it. Louis was convinced that it was there. I just have to look harder.”
I had to put in my two cents worth, I can’t help it, it is who I am. “I see it the other way around. You need to stop trying to connect the dots. You know how you look at those pictures, the optical illusion type things, and it isn’t until you let your eyes go out of focus that you see the real image. I think it’s like that.”
“What?”
“If you keep your eyes open, and don’t try to assign importance to any one thing, or any group of things, then all kinds of things will jump out at you. If you don’t look for the connections, they will just kind of smack you in the head. Sometimes the connection is where you least expect it. Sometimes it is so obvious you miss it.”
“Can you give me a for instance?”
“Sure. A couple of weeks ago, I was all about figuring out who killed that socialite, Lily Ivy-Rosenbaum.”
“It’s Rosenbloom, I worked on the periphery of that case myself, go ahead.”
“She was the start of my three.”
“Your three?”
“I’m very Irish. I was raised to believe that all things, good and bad, come in threes. I’m not sure if it’s an Irish thing, or just my mother, but that holds true for most of my beliefs.”
“Threes.”
“First I was focused on Ms. Rosenbloom. Then my mom’s friend Bernie died. Then Louis. I would bet big money that if you were reviewing their lives, you would never see a connection, but a connection is there.”
“You knew Rosenbloom and Louis? You’re the connection?”
“Ok, you need to listen and stop trying to smoosh everything I say into what you have already decided is valid.”
“Sorry.”
“No, I didn’t know Ms. Rosenbloom or Louis before they died. That’s the point. You take three random people like that and still they already have more than one connection.”
“More than one? I thought you were the connection.”
“Well, I guess I’m the first connection, kind of, cause I actually came second, but it’s the second one that smacked me, the one that actually came first. I see it now because I wasn’t paying attention.”
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