The Sins of the Mother (Miller & Stevens Book 1)

by Scott Pratt

  A man on Brooke’s right raised his hand. “I have a question. Have you ever had a serious case where there was little to no evidence or leads? And if so, how did you handle it?”

  A good question, Brooke thought to herself. Especially right now. “Yes, I have, Paul. How did I handle it? You just follow every lead, talk to every possible witness. Sometimes something breaks, sometimes it doesn’t. But you never give up. You keep digging. Perseverance is the key when there isn’t much evidence.”

  Another hand went up. “Yes, Linda.”

  “What are the toughest cases for you to work?”

  “For most cops, I’d say it’s crimes against children. And I think it’s worse if you actually have children of your own.” Several heads nodded in agreement. “Okay, looks like we’re out of time for tonight. We’ll see you guys back next week. You’re dismissed.”

  Brooke packed her files and computer, walked outside, sat down on the bench, and listened as the crickets began their lonely night song. They’d be stopping soon, after the first hard frost. The nights were growing chillier.

  She loaded her car and checked her phone. She’d missed two phone calls. The one from her mom was followed by a text about dinner and trick-or-treating with Sierra. The other was from Lukas Miller. She called him back on the drive home. The phone rang twice before a tired, sleepy-sounding Lukas picked up. She listened as he gave her his theory about the abortion angle.

  “I think it’s something we definitely need to follow up on,” he said.

  There was a slight pause. She heard him inhale and exhale slowly. Finally, he said, “It could be that in his own sick way, he’s trying to tell a story with the bodies.”

  “Okay, let’s say you’re right. What are you proposing?”

  “I’m not sure. I think we need to go over the files again, maybe even visit the scenes. Do some interviews at the abortion clinic. I was also thinking about making another run at the families. And I have a friend at the FBI office downtown with profiling experience. We could talk to him to see if he has any advice.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “You take the families.”

  “I’ll get on it ASAP. How did it go with the last victim’s notification?” she asked, changing the topic.

  “It was bad. She had two small children, twins, who will more than likely be raised by their grandmother now. I interviewed her briefly. She didn’t have much to offer. She didn’t know much about her daughter’s working habits.”

  Brooke shook her head. She’d told the class earlier that crimes against children were the hardest to work, but crimes where children were collateral damage were almost as tough. Brooke, like other cops, felt deep sympathy for innocent children who were left orphaned by senseless violence.

  “Oh,” she said. “I don’t mean to change the subject again, but I meant to tell you I have a meeting with my chief Monday morning. We can get together after that if you want.”

  “Sure thing. Just give me a call when you’re done.”

  “Will do. Good night.”

  Brooke drove the rest of the way home on autopilot. She barely remembered the trip. She switched the lights down to dim as she made her way up the gravel driveway. She noticed the front porch light was off.

  “That’s odd,” she said out loud, “I thought I turned that on. Probably burned out again.” She parked her black, unmarked Impala in the driveway on the right side of the house. A quick glance at her phone showed it was just after eight. Sierra should be smack in the middle of her trick-or-treat routine and was most likely wearing her grandparents out. It was decent of her ex-husband to share Sierra on this holiday, especially since it was his weekend to have her, but Brooke suspected he probably had a date and a party to go to. Alex, as much as she hated to admit it because it meant she’d made a mistake when she married him, was a jerk. Brooke sighed, unlocked the door and braced herself for the frenzied greeting she was about to get. Judging by the barking, she’d been missed.

  Gus, their two-year-old miniature Schnauzer, went into a tailspin around her legs. She bent down and scooped his wriggling body into her arms. “Hey buddy, have you kept a good watch on the house?”

  Brooke poured herself a glass of tea, took a long drink, and headed to the living room. She kicked off her shoes, placed the glass of tea on a coaster, and turned on the TV. Cartoons were on from the last time the TV was used, so she turned to a news channel. A report about a huge burglary ring that had been busted in Dallas reminded her of the outside light that was mysteriously off. She forced herself from the comfy chair and headed to the front door. She flipped the switch, and the light came on.

  She cringed. She was going to have to be more mindful. She’d let her mind wander too much lately. She needed to relax. And she knew just the thing.

  She changed into her orange University of Tennessee sweats and retrieved a cigarette and lighter she had hidden in a kitchen drawer. She walked out the French doors to the covered porch. Smoking was a habit she had picked up while she was in the police academy. She rationalized that an occasional smoke wouldn’t kill her. Besides, she stayed active and was in great physical condition. Not that she’d admit to anyone that she smoked. She went to great lengths to keep her little vice a secret. She kept the cigarettes hidden, only smoked outside when nobody was around, and she kept an artificial flower pot on the back porch where she placed her butts. She emptied it every other day or so. The pot looked authentic, but it had a removable top and housed a secret compartment. It was designed as a safe – it had a key and everything – but she just used it for hiding cigarette butts. She’d thought of everything.

  She could count on one hand the people that knew about her dirty little secret. She took a long drag and closed her eyes as the nicotine started to relax her. Her mom seemed to have a suspicion, although Brooke didn’t know how. Mothers seemed to have a way of knowing things they shouldn’t. She was now grateful for the intuition, since she was a mom herself. Her mother disapproved, of course, even though she knew why Brooke might light up occasionally. She only smoked to calm her nerves or to relax. And after sex, of course. But that hadn’t happened in a long, long time.

  She told herself to think about something besides the murders. “How about how good things are? I have Sierra and my parents. I love my job. I love the house.” The furnishings were all hers, her taste, her style. She had an eye for interior design, and everything coordinated perfectly, right down to the curtain rods.

  She finished her smoke and reached down for the pot. She removed the top, opened the lid, and noticed that the butts had piled up during the week. There were five in there. She stepped off the porch and emptied the butts into a burn barrel about 50 feet from the house. She burned trash that she didn’t recycle every few days, and the butts went up in smoke.

  “Can’t be too careful,” she mumbled to herself as she walked back to the house.

  The doorbell rang just as she finished. Close call. She went to the door and peered through the peep hole and saw her little angel all dressed up in her Cinderella costume. She opened the door and heard an adorable, “Trick or treat.”

  Sierra jumped into her outstretched arms, and Brooke hugged her so tightly she could feel the cheap costume crumble.

  “Hi, Mommy. You smell funny. Like smoke.”

  “I just came from the firing range, baby.”

  “Are we going to carve a pumpkin?”

  “We sure are.”

  “Let’s do the mummy this year. I already picked him out.”

  Brooke looked out at the waiting car and waved to her mom and dad. They’d picked Sierra up from Alex’s place and taken her trick-or-treating. “Wave bye to Grandma and Grandpa.”

  Her dad must have been driving. The horn honked, and the headlights blinked before they drove off. She wanted to talk to her dad. She wanted to run these cases by him and get his
thoughts. But for now, there was a pumpkin to be carved. A big one.

  Not long after, Brooke heard the snap of the screen door and looked up to see her best friend, Haley, dressed in far too classy a manner for pulling out pumpkin guts. Brooke glanced at her watch. “Right on time, as usual.”

  “What do you think?” She spun around, and Brooke realized Haley’s outfit was actually Halloween themed. Her glittery sweater had silver spider webs, and her pants sported a stylish swirling script of Boo over and over. Leave it to Haley to turn cheesy into haute couture.

  “Sexy,” Brooke said. “Elvira’s got nothing on you, girl.”

  “Well, how about we turn on some scary movies to get the mood right?”

  “Uh, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “Please,” Sierra said. “I won’t be scared or have bad dreams, promise. Please.”

  “Well, maybe. But I get to choose which one we’ll watch.”

  ***

  All three of them ended up working on the mummy carving. The pattern Sierra chose was difficult to carve, as usual. But they laughed and half-watched the movie Brooke had picked out – Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas – and had a grand time. Sierra fell asleep halfway through the movie, leaving Brooke and Haley to finish the carving.

  Brooke spent what was left of Halloween filling Haley in on the latest concerning the murders and other recent personal events, including her new partner. Haley was clearly infatuated with him, even though she’d only see him on the news twice.

  “He’s hot,” Haley said. “Smoking hot.”

  “I don’t date men I work with,” Brooke said. “Besides, he has a girlfriend.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “No.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Gabriele.”

  “Probably some exotic Latin siren,” Haley said.

  “I don’t care.”

  The conversation eventually wound down as they cleaned up, and Haley left.

  Brooke sat on the sofa after Haley was gone, brushing her hair and petting Gus at the same time. She allowed her mind to wander. It wasn’t long before her mind returned to the murders. Did Lukas have a point about the abortion angle? He could be right. Or it could just be random coincidence. Either way, it was something they needed to investigate further.

  They were in a reactive state with the investigation, a fact she didn’t like. Waiting for another body was the same as doing nothing, letting the bad guy have the upper hand. And he did. The killer had the initiative. They had to devise a plan to force him to make a mistake, get him out in the open. Lukas had more experience in that area than she did, but he seemed to be stymied as well. He was trying to work it out on his own, she knew. She’d heard it in his voice on the phone.

  And what about that prostitute he seemed to be so close to, almost too close? Razzy? Surely, he hadn’t crossed the line. Miller probably had a lot of women in his life, which was to be expected with his playboy good looks and the way he carried himself. For her, there was a difference between cocky and confident, and she wasn’t quite sure where he fell in that regard. Maybe he thought he could charm anyone.

  Enough thinking. Monday would come soon enough, and she had a meeting scheduled with the chief. She didn’t know what he wanted, but she was sure it would be a busy day no matter what. She just hoped another body didn’t drop between now and then.

  Chapter Eight

  The man was off today, and he had a lot of work to do.

  He wolfed down his breakfast and dressed quickly. Next, a call to make sure the second-hand store was going to be open since it was Sunday. They confirmed they would be open between one and five.

  A few hours later, he was sitting in his car in the lot of Rerun Antiques thinking about things he could use. He would have to plan carefully.

  Something inside him that he had managed to keep suppressed for years had finally made its way to the surface, and now that events had begun to unfold, he needed to be methodical. So far, everything had gone according to plan. But he couldn’t afford to get sloppy now.

  He looked at his watch. The store should be open. He walked the short distance to the front door. The bell overhead jingled cheerfully, and a man who looked to be in his mid-50s called out a welcome. The man looked as old as the interior of the store, and just as messy. The place was a wreck. It needed repairs in several places.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked.

  “Thanks, I’m just looking.”

  “Okay, sing out if you need anything. I own the place, so I know where everything is.”

  He nodded. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for. He needed a prop of some kind to allay suspicion. There were several possibilities, but each had complications associated with them. Finally, he spotted something that might be perfect. He walked over and stood in front of what appeared to be surveying equipment.

  “None of it works,” the proprietor said as he walked up.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The pieces you’re looking at. They don’t work.”

  “I may know somebody who can fix them. How much?”

  “Considering the condition, I’ll let you have all of it for fifty dollars plus tax.”

  “Sold.”

  He carried the equipment to the register, took the money from his wallet, and handed it to the owner.

  “Thanks. Come back now, ya hear?” The owner was clearly happy with his end of the deal, and he waved and smiled. The man nodded politely, picked up the equipment, and walked out of the store. There was still much to do.

  He drove the green sedan down the gravel road on the outskirts of Kingsport. Keeping his eyes on the road as much as possible, he occasionally looked at the houses off to the side. He’d found the address a week earlier on the internet and had been in the area briefly a couple of times. He made a left turn onto Jankins Loop and found a spot where he could see the house without being too conspicuous. The overgrown fence rows around the farm land and fields helped conceal him. He pulled the car over and parked.

  He reached over to open the glove box and took out the small pair of camouflaged binoculars. Holding them to his eyes, he turned the focusing knob on top and brought the building sharply into view. Curtains covered the windows, obscuring any view of the house’s interior.

  He got out of the car, removed the equipment and placed it on the hood of the car. The house was directly north of the tree line where the cameras were to be placed. Walking down the road and back, he attempted to imitate the surveyors he had seen along the roads. Once he had a clear picture of where the cameras were to be placed, he eased them from the bag lying in the back seat of the sedan and secured them, making sure they were pointed at the rear and sides of the house.

  He checked the cameras one last time, then packed up his props and left the area the way he had come in, completely undetected. Mission accomplished, he thought to himself.

  He loaded the equipment, got into his car, and headed back to the main road toward the city. He began having flashbacks. He didn’t know what triggered them, but they were vivid. He thought of nights alone in his bedroom, listening into the morning as his mother had sex with yet another man. He could hear the sounds the drunk men made – the disgusting grunts and moans – as they pawed at his mother.

  But most of all, he remembered the night she tried to kill him. He’d been taking a bath after having played until dark at a park a few blocks from the run-down rental house he shared with her. He was 12 years old, and it was late summer. School was about to start back. He heard her come in through the kitchen, and the next thing he knew the bathroom door opened. The lock didn’t work. He could smell cigarette smoke and alcohol on her as soon as she staggered in and knew she’d been at her favorite bar, a dive called The Silver Saddle. She took two steps into the bathroom and slipped on some wate
r that had sloshed out of the tub onto the cheap, linoleum floor. She banged her right shoulder into the wall and wound up face down on her belly.

  “Are you all right?” he said. He didn’t call her Momma or Mom or Mother. He didn’t call her by name. He didn’t call her anything. When he wanted her attention, he just said, “Hey!”

  “You little bastard,” she hissed. “I’ve had about all I can take…”

  She came off of the floor and lunged at him. Her hands went around his neck and she pushed his head under the water. He flailed and splashed and squirmed and finally, probably because she was so drunk, managed to get himself free. He scrambled out of the tub and out the bathroom door into the kitchen, gasping for air. A knife was on the counter by the sink. He picked it up and walked back to the bathroom. By that time, she was sitting on the toilet relieving herself, her jeans and panties around her ankles. She looked up and said, “Go ahead, boy. You better get me while you can, because next time, I won’t let you get away.”

  He gripped the knife tighter and stepped into the bathroom.

  “They’ll send you to an adult prison,” she said. “The men there will make a woman out of you in a week. You’ll die in jail, and then you’ll go straight to hell.”

  He’d backed away, knowing that one day he’d get another chance, a better chance. He’d kill her and do it without being caught. And then the relentless squeaking would be gone. The constant squeaking of bedsprings. He was forced to listen to that damned squeaking night after night, hour after hour. His knuckles turned white as his grip tightened on the steering wheel. Sweat ran down his forehead, and his breathing became labored.

  Occasionally, he would hear his mother getting roughed up. She had come into his room in the morning many times with a shiner or swollen lips. He didn’t care. At some level, he wished one of them would kill her. At another, he wanted to do it himself.

  She was a drunk. When she wasn’t screwing some john, she was wasted. As he grew older, he became more and more embarrassed. He had very few friends during his childhood and having anyone over to his house was out of the question. He never knew when his mom would tie one on. People had dropped by a couple of times, but he’d hidden to save himself the embarrassment of them seeing his mom passed out drunk, half-naked, slobbering on the couch.