Moni caught Sneed eyeing Mariella in her glass box like a gator with its snout poking out of the water sizing up a limping lamb.
“We’ll be needing her side of the story ‘bout now,” Sneed told Moni.
The officers focused on Moni. They waited for the answers that she didn’t have. She shifted her gaze to Mariella, who looked right back at her. The girl’s hands had frozen clenching the crayons. Moni could lie and tell them the girl hadn’t seen anything. But they’d never buy it. She hadn’t been traumatized into selective mutism without seeing something terrible.
“I’m still working on it,” Moni said. “When girl gets over the shock, I’ll bring you what she has.”
“Yeah, and how long will that take? Weeks? Months? Her whole damn life?” Sneed threw his arms up and bumped the folding table with his belly so that it collided with Moni’s elbows. “How many people will die until she can get her shit straight?”
“Sir, I…”
“I don’t care!” Sneed hollered. Even though Mariella couldn’t hear the commotion, Moni saw her wince inside the office. She must have seen the rage on his boiling face. “My brother is with the Lord right now because people didn’t talk. We had four of them people who witnessed a gang-related shooting in Atlanta and none of them said a damn thing about what happened right in front of them. We didn’t catch the gunman until after my brother pulled him over for driving like a motherfucking crazy man. As soon as he stepped out of the patrol car, that thug blew his head off. If even one of those witnesses had offered up his name, it never would have happened…” She could see the stinging pain in his red eyes as they stared her down. “So I don’t wanna hear no bullshit. The girl talks.”
Moni hung her head. She caught Mariella sending an anxious look her way after spending so much time locked in the office. Moni could only protect her for so long until she started putting other peoples’ lives at risk.
“I’ll talk to the psychologist and push her as far as she can go,” Moni said. “But don’t expect a breakthrough right away.”
“Well, when there is a breakthrough, why don’t you ask her about her mother’s hand?” said detective Nina Skillings. “There was a big bruise on it. Looks like it came from some little fingers squeezing really tight.”
Sure, that would be an easy question. Skillings assumed all girls were made of bricks and barbed wire like her.
“That bruise could have happened shortly before or shortly after her mother died,” Dr. Rudy said. “But it’s clear that Mariella left the mark. She’s stronger than she looks.”
Moni watched the girl gently coloring in the finishing touches of her drawing.
“Sometimes overwhelming grief and fear can give you a strength you didn’t know you had,” Moni said. “But when you deny yourself an outlet and turn that fear against yourself, it eats out your soul.”
No one could follow that somber tone in her voice. Sneed, who knew about her father because he had access to her personnel file, must have understood how deeply it reflected on her life. He dismissed the investigation unit.
Moni dashed back into her office. Mariella leapt off the couch and wrapped her arms around the officer’s waist. Now she knew why people had children.
But Mariella didn’t belong to her. No matter how much the child needed her, Moni couldn’t become a parent while working on this case, because a parent would never let Mariella dwell on this horrible day again.
Moni’s phone rang. It turned out that the demons in her past wouldn’t leave her alone either. She didn’t feel like answering, but if she didn’t, he’d show up on her doorstep with his calloused hand extended for her cash.
“Hi father,” she answered in an ice-cold tone.
“Saw you on the news today, darlin’,” Bo Williams said with the slur of alcohol on his lips. “You was carrying a little Mexican girl away from a crime scene. It was a nasty one, I reckon?”
Small talk. He always did it before getting to the point: money. With his work as an auto mechanic, he could probably pay his own way if it weren’t for all the boozing and gambling. The fact that this animal knew of someone as fragile and precious as Mariella settled in Moni’s stomach like rotten cheese.
“Yeah, it was rough out there today,” Moni said. “And I’m real busy working on the case so…”
“Great! I’ll make it right quick then,” he snapped. She could have hung up. She could have hung up on him right there and not answered the call when he rang her back. But, just like how she never fled her childhood home and never called the police on that abusive monster, Moni let him roll on. “My landlord’s fix’n to kick me out on my ass next month if I don’t make rent. You don’t wanna see your old man out on the street again, do ya?”
As much as that bastard deserved sleeping underneath a bridge every night, that would only give him more time out in public where he could encounter new victims. If he panhandled again, he might jump in the car with a woman and have his twisted fun.
God, why’d they let him out? Ten years in prison wasn’t nearly enough.
Bo Williams might have stayed in the pen if the girl he had beaten had died, but she survived to live on with barely any use in her arm. Moni should have protected her friend from him, but she led the girl right into her home. She had watched her father wrench Sasha’s arm behind her back until it broke. Her friend screamed and bawled tears. And when Moni begged him to stop, her father shoved her against the wall. She sat where she fell as Sasha’s beating continued. She covered her eyes and ears, like if she didn’t see or hear it, it wasn’t happening.
“You wanna be like this girl? You wanna be fashionable, don’t cha?” her father had shouted at Moni as he pulled her friend’s braids and slammed her face against the dining room table. “You think I’m gonna buy you all this nice shit? Well, when you earn a nickel, you can pay me back for all the money I wasted on you. I’m taking all those clothes your mother bought, taking the receipt and returning them to the store. I don’t want you ever splurging on that shit without my permission again!”
Moni gripped Mariella’s hand as the memories flooded back to her. She had once been a defenseless child. No one stuck up for her. Moni’s mother, bless her soul, had a fragile heart that couldn’t stand up to him.
Now this young girl had no one fighting for her. Everyone saw her as a jewelry case filled with gems of information. A case proves useful only until it’s opened. When it’s empty, it’s thrown away. Moni couldn’t let that happen to Mariella.
“I’ll send you a check for another nine-hundred dollars, but don’t you come by and pick it up,” Moni told her father. “I’ll mail it.”
She’d cut ties with him for good another time. Right now, Moni needed her father as far out of her life as possible.
“Nine-hundred?” he asked incredulously, like he had any negotiating power besides being annoying as hell. “How about an even grand?”
“I know what your rent is. I’m not paying you a nickel more.”
“Well, a man’s gotta eat, don’t he? You want me scrounging outta a dumpster like a raccoon?”
She wouldn’t mind watching that at all. Hell, she’d take a picture, frame it and hang it in her office.
“I’ll put your check in the mail tomorrow,” said Moni, who made sure she didn’t commit to an amount. Arguing with him killed her. Every time her old man raised his voice, her jaw would ache from where he used to slap it as he scolded her.
“I’m sure that you will. I know you’ve got a big case and all, but don’t forget your old pa.”
As they ended the call, Moni wished she could forget him. She understood why the little girl holding her hand and showing her a drawing of a manatee should be allowed to let her demons slip from her memory as well.
Moni sent DCF agent Tanya Roberts a text message: In court tomorrow, I will ask for temporary custody of the child. Let me protect her.
Without even looking at the words Moni had typed, Mariella gave her a big smile. She must hav
e seen the shift in her demeanor towards her. Duty be dammed, Mariella was more than a witness.
“I’ll take care of you, baby,” Moni said as she put her arm around Mariella. “You won’t be afraid no more.”
If only Moni had someone to tell her those words.
Chapter 4
When the sun rises out over the Atlantic Ocean and dips its light into the Indian River Lagoon, sometimes it unveils the gruesome events of the night before. This time, a headless body rolled around in the water getting tossed against the sea wall behind a Merritt Island home. That’s where Detective Tom Sneed headed before he could finish his morning coffee and grits.
The fist of dread seized Sneed around his windpipe as he feared the worst. Sneed had gotten a call shortly before midnight from Maggie Kane, the wife of his poker buddy Matt Kane. Her husband hadn’t returned from a late afternoon fishing trip. After the murder investigation the prior morning made his first outing a wash, the son-of-a-gun vowed that he’d have a fresh catch for dinner that night. Sneed wondered whether someone had caught him first.
Sneed pulled alongside the first responder’s patrol car in the driveway. Summoning a deep breath into his barrel chest, he reached for the door. It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. When he took command of a crime scene, he usually got an adrenaline rush like Bear Bryant leading the Crimson Tide onto the football field. This time, the black swoon reminded Sneed of that God-forsaken day; the day that he sped to the scene of an officer shooting and found his brother sprawled out on the pavement in a pool of blood. It took three men to stop him from shooting the nose ring off that punk-ass killer before they hauled him in front of a judge.
Brushing past the hysterical old man who owned the lagoon-side home, Sneed barged through the metal gateway and into the backyard. The moment he saw the sopping wet body, he knew. Kane had a tattoo on his left shoulder of his daughter’s name, “Angie” and her birthday. It matched the tats on the decapitated corpse.
“Matt,” Sneed muttered. Even if he was alive, his old buddy didn’t have ears left to hear him. Sneed raked his hand over his eyes and nose and then balled a fist over his mouth. He wished he could crack the jaw of the bastard who decapitated his friend—a father, a beer-guzzling jokester, a man who had tamed the lagoon like a rodeo champion.
Except, it seemed something in the lagoon had bitten Kane back. He had teeth puncture wounds on his right shoulder. Sneed had seen plenty of shark and gator bites, but that wasn’t one of them. Those wounds were left by flat molars that had barely pierced his skin.
“You’ve lived ‘round these parts longer than I have, Harrison,” Sneed told the towering officer who had arrived on the scene first. “What do you figure bit him?”
The lug nut scratched his curly head, as if waking up his brain and telling it to chip in. A former offensive lineman in small-time college ball, Clyde Harrison usually got the job done with his bear-like strength. At least he did as he was told, unlike some officers.
“Something pretty damn big, sir,” Harrison finally responded. That must have taken all his mental capacity. “I think his boat struck something mighty large too. I got a call from the Coast Guard. It turns out they found a capsized boat in the lagoon. The propeller was all bent and bloody.”
Knowing that his detective buddy would wipe his tickets clean, Kane had plowed over critters and kept on going many a day. One time, Sneed had been in the boat with him when Kane ripped open the back of a manatee. That jackal laughed as he sped away. Hell, Sneed had laughed right along with him. They had owned the fucking lagoon.
Running his eyes over the headless body of Kane splayed out on the grass at his feet, Sneed sure knew otherwise now. Kane had struck an animal so big that it flipped his boat over. That didn’t explain how he got bit on the shoulder or how he lost his head to a surgically precise blow.
This couldn’t have been a coincidence, Sneed realized. The four previous victims of the head snatcher appeared random, but this time the killer took out the first man who had arrived on the murder scene. Kane was the first person who found the girl hiding in the mangroves. Did the killer know about her as well?
Sneed’s windpipe seized up as the foul stench of his friend’s innards and bile wafted through the salty air. Pressing his hand against his chest, he coaxed the air out of his lungs.
“The killer is hacking up anyone who could help us on this case,” Sneed told Harrison.
“So you’re saying…”
“The girl.” Sneed nodded. “By now, the killer realizes she got away. Kane here didn’t even see his face. This girl is the only one who has.”
“I’ll guard her, sir. He won’t get by me.”
Sneed gazed down at his friend’s body. Kane had been tough-as-nails. He told Sneed in the briefing following the Gomez murders that he wouldn’t set out on the water again without a shotgun hitching a ride with him. If the killer could bag a skilled shooter like Kane, no one should feel safe.
Sneed wondered what possessed him to place the most precious commodity they had in the hands of an officer with a limp trigger finger and a fruit rollup for a backbone. She couldn’t round up a rowdy middle-schooler.
“The girl is in Moni’s care for now, like it or not,” Sneed said. Finally unable to stomach looking at his friend’s mutilated body, he turned away and mashed his palm into his sweaty forehead. “This is one good man who wouldn’t have died if that girl had opened her mouth. If Moni doesn’t hurry the hell up, I guaran-damn-tee you there’ll be more mornings like these.”
* * * *
A couple of days ago, Moni couldn’t imagine she’d have an eight-year-old girl sharing her home. After the hearing before the judge that morning made it official—at least temporarily—her unforeseen dream came true.
Even though she still couldn’t make her speak, Moni saw the sparks of life returning to Mariella. She studied the children’s books she bought her on the way home from the courthouse. Mariella copied the pictures and words almost exactly with her colored pencils. The girl didn’t make another mistake in the bathroom, although Moni couldn’t get her to fall asleep in her office. Mariella stayed awake all night and hardly seemed tired.
The girl appeared to be comfortable with Moni’s house, with the glaring exception of Tropic the red-haired cat. While she shot him a distrustful stare, he dashed under the bed at the first sight of the intruder.
Someone isn’t the baby of the house anymore. Sorry, fiery fur ball.
The officers who had swept Mariella’s former apartment gave her some of the girl’s old dolls, but Moni decided the girl should do without those for now. Anything associated with the life shattered a day ago could unleash the debilitating memories inside the girl’s head. Moni didn’t think she could handle them yet. Mariella should adjust to her new surroundings first.
A few minutes after entering the unfamiliar house, Mariella headed for the sliding glass door leading to the back porch. Moni had an elevated deck overlooking a creek that fed into the Indian River Lagoon. Despite her ordeal by the lagoon the day before, Mariella didn’t appear threatened by the creek. She’s getting over this already, Moni thought.
Sitting on her back porch under the mid-morning sun, Moni watched Mariella draw a long gray boat on the water.
“Nice boat,” Moni said. “Does it have a captain?”
Mariella shot Moni an obliging glance. She drew a stick figure. It wasn’t in the boat, though. It was under water. The girl had drawn a picture last night that looked similar, except it had a manatee too.
“It looks even better this time,” Moni said.
Mariella nodded and reached for Moni’s hand, where she held a folded letter. Moni hadn’t let go of it since pulling it off her front door.
“Oh this? It’s nothing, baby,” Moni said. “If you want, I’ll get you some clean paper to draw another pretty picture on. This one is a little dirty.”
Mariella shook her head and made an opening motion with her hands. Ain’t it something that th
e silent witness insists that the police officer doesn’t keep secrets, Moni thought.
“Alright. Alright,” Moni opened the letter.
Before she even saw Darren’s handwriting, she knew he had left it. In this day of e-mail and text messages, only he would pin thug mail to her door with a stick of gum. It’s not that he didn’t use computers—his wannabe hip hop act made its own ring tone—Darren made sure that Moni knew he wasn’t done showing up at her door. Telling him, “Get the hell out of my life,” couldn’t chase him away after seven years.
Moni unfolded the letter halfway and read the first few lines. They sounded like the deep growl of his voice inside her head:
You made a big mistake ignoring me. You’re my girl. Next time I call, you answer me.
This is my house. You better give me the new key. Maybe I’ll find my own way in.
He should have written her an apology after she caught him banging that ho doggy style in the back seat of a purple Cadillac on her late night sweep a couple months back. Darren had just assumed she’d forgive him, like she had the times she’d caught him flirting around in clubs. But not that time. Not after she saw him groaning uncontrollably as he yanked on the girl’s spiky hair while he laid it to her.
Moni crumpled up the letter, tossed it on her grill and lit it up. The paper crackled in the fire. The words were burned away as if they never existed.
If only she could banish the real Darren so easily. She loved his laugh and his take-no-shit attitude. With arms of black steel and tribal tattoos, Darren made sure no one messed with her, especially her father. With a deranged killer lurking out there, Moni could use some extra muscle by her side. Too bad she didn’t hit the weights more before volunteering as a foster parent.
She rested her hand on Mariella’s shoulder as the girl stared at the gas flames consuming the letter.
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