Blood Week

by J. D. Martin

  With sunken shoulders, Brett said he understood as Marcus escorted him to holding. What was one night in holding after fifteen years of it? We knew that all we had was circumstantial, but we’d have to release him in 24 hours if nothing solid comes up anyway. No DA would ever try to prosecute a man with this little evidence because they would lose. Needing a jumpstart, I poured myself some coffee in the break room before going to my desk.

  “Saint,” said Pinick as he caught me leaving the break room. “The results came back on the bullet we found in the parking garage.”

  “Great, did we get any hits?” Before the answer passed Pinick’s lips, I could see the disappointment painted all over his face.

  “No. We didn’t even get a chance to test it. The lab told me the sample was contaminated by a fungus or something on the wall. I can’t even pronounce the stuff, but we won’t be able to make any kind of ID with it at this point.”

  “God damn it.”

  “Tell me about it, but before you continue with that thought, I do have some good news. You remember the clothes we collected from the woman in the elevator? Well, we found blood on them too.”

  “Edward, tell me we’re having better luck with the clothes than the slug.”

  He paused long enough to form a huge grin on his face, “The sample was good. Kathryn is running it through the database as we speak.”

  “What the fuck, man? Why didn’t you lead with that?”

  Pinick shrugged, “Just being thorough.”

  “Just let me know if, and when, we get anything.”

  “Will do,” he said, walking back to his desk.

  Back at my little slice of real estate, I took another sip from my cup as I sat in my chair. Looking at the stack of papers on my desk made me wish I could be anywhere else in the world. I was not the least bit in the mood for paperwork right now, but there was one place I could find what I did want to do. Carrying my coffee with me, I went to the elevator and pressed the round, plastic button that would take me to the morgue. Descending, the bell chimed as the doors opened and the person I was on my way to see bumped into me as I tried to step out.

  “Afternoon gorgeous,” I said as Amy stopped in her tracks, noticing it was me. She smiled in that way that could melt everything away until it was only her.

  “Afternoon yourself. What are you doing down here?”

  With a complete lack of trying to hide my intentions, I stepped forward and wrapped her up in my arms. Our eyes stared deep into one another as I leaned in to meet her lips. Before I could press my mouth to hers, my phone started ringing. Detective Edward Pinick couldn’t have had worse timing.

  “Done already?” she asked as I answered the phone. “Talk about quick draw over here.”

  We both laughed. “Duty calls,” I said, “rain check?”

  “I don’t know. You might have to sweet talk me first,” she said walking past me into the elevator. The doors closed as she gave me a wink, and then she was gone.

  “We’re going to have to work on your timing,” I said to Pinick. “What do you got for me?”

  There was always a measured amount of suspense when new information came out on a case. Each new piece could make or break an investigation, but what he had to tell me was a piece that could blow everything wide open.

  “We got something back on that blood sample. It doesn’t belong to anyone in the system, but it’s not a total dead end.” A momentary pause allowed him to build up the gravity of what had been discovered. “We got some unexpected results that you’ll want to see for yourself. But first, I’d recommend you pull your suspect back out of holding.”

  “I’ll be there in two minutes.”

  Chapter 25

  I stepped through the elevator doors before they finished opening and found Pinick waiting for me. News that a blood sample didn’t come up with any hits wasn’t out of the ordinary, and it was something every cop learned to live with. There was no way to have the DNA of every person on the planet, so you started to assume that blood wouldn’t get you anything in the beginning. But Edward’s news from Kat was anything but normal.

  Waving Delgado over to join us by interrogation 1, I skimmed the file from Pinick as he went to join his partner in the observation room. After filling in Marcus on the news, we entered interrogation together to question our guest again. I was anxious to see how he reacted as he eyeballed us coming in to join him.

  Curiosity crept across Brett’s brow as he wondered why he was back in this room again. He was completely lost on the reason, but I was there to enlighten him as I stepped up to the table and sat in front of him. “Mr. Davidson, we have some exceptional news for you.”

  “What?” Before I laid everything out for him, I inquired about his siblings. “I have my brother Peter that you’ve already met, why? What’s this all about?”

  “Please…humor me.”

  Brett told a story of the wonderful man that stood up for him at every turn. Peter visited Brett every Saturday in prison like clockwork before they moved to Kansas City together. He’d come in with news of the family, how the Cardinals were doing, and even brought in home-cooked meals on occasion. Peter was the only one that ever looked at him the same after what happened to Tara. He was the only one that kept in touch and always looked after him.

  “The only reason I made it through prison was because of him. Having a piece of my family still with me is what got me from one day to the next. He even promised to get me a job at the factory he works at. I’m telling you, I’d have been found in a noose a long time ago if it wasn’t for him.”

  “Peter sounds like a standup guy to have as your brother,” I said.

  “He is,” Brett and I both heard a short chuckle from Marcus. “He is,” he said eyeballing Delgado. Looking back to me, he continued, “Now, why did you want to know about him?”

  “Well, Mr. Davidson, we got the results back from a DNA panel that we ran on a blood sample. It was retrieved from the man that we believe murdered Joseph Matthews and Trent Williams.”

  “He also attacked a detective in his home while transporting Trent’s body,” added Delgado. As Brett stared at him, his brow wrinkled as he attempted to connect the dots. “He tried to kill him; a police officer. But we weren’t able to get a match on the DNA in our system.”

  “I don’t see what this has to do with me.”

  “I’m getting to that. While we didn’t find a complete match, there was a familial relationship found.”

  “What are you getting at?” Even as the words came out, I could see that Brett didn’t want to hear the answer. The dots were forming a picture, and he didn’t like where the crumbs were leading him.

  “The sample had markers in common with your DNA, which means the blood belongs to a direct relative of yours. More specifically, a male sibling.”

  “It’s your brother,” I said, filling in the blanks for emphasis.

  “What do you mean it’s my brother? Why would he go to your house? You must have made a mistake.”

  “Perhaps he thought we were onto the two of you and—with Saint being the lead detective on the case—he made the absurd attempt to frame him for the recent murders.”

  “I already told you, I didn’t kill any of them. You’ve got the wrong guy,” pausing, he added, “wrong guys!”

  A tap came from the mirror directly behind me. “We’ll be back,” said Delgado. “How about you think about what we’ve said and see if you have something better to tell us.”

  Stepping out to the bullpen, Simmons waited excitedly to give us his news. A call had come in from the forensics team at Trent’s home. When they arrived, the rooms had been torn apart like it had been burglarized, but it was hard to say if anything had been stolen. All the major electronics and a savings jar were undisturbed. But Simmons now believed the burglar hadn’t found what he was looking for because of what the techs discovered.

  A single pillow on the couch gave the impression that Trent had slept there recently, and i
nside was a hidden USB drive. Our forensics team didn’t cut corners, but we were lucky that the person who broke in didn’t share this trait. When the pillow had been pulled from the case, they found that the pillow had been cut down the center, and inside was where they located the memory stick.

  “Now why would someone hide a flash drive in a pillow?” asked Simmons, rhetorically. “They discovered it was password encrypted, but that didn’t stop them. Twenty minutes after Eric got hold of it, we had full access to what was stored on it.” Simmons grinned as he held up a sheet of paper with a transcript printed on it. “Alex, we have a full accounting in Trent’s own words of what really happened the night his sister died, and this version has an alternate ending.”

  I took the transcript from Simmons and held it where Marcus and I could both read through it. He was right, this completely rewrites what happened that night.

  “This was everything on the flash drive?” I asked. “How do we know it’s authentic?”

  “Because the drive was a video of Trent confessing the truth. This is just a printout of what he said. Eric did a query to see when the video was recorded, and I think this may be why he’s dead because it was less than two weeks ago. His death was to cover up the truth.”

  “Do you have the video with you?”

  “I thought you might ask,” he said, holding up a department issue flash drive.

  “Great, let Pinick and Bronson know too. Are they already on route to get Peter?”

  “Will do, and yes. When they heard the confirmation that Peter was Brett’s only sibling, the left immediately.”

  “Good.” Grabbing a laptop, Marcus and I reentered the room to show Brett what had developed.

  “Brett,” I said as I started setting up the laptop on the table. “What if I told you there was a possibility you’re not a murderer after all?”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you. I had nothing to do with Trent or Judge Matthews.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I mean that you’ve never killed anybody.”

  “Except for Tara, right?” he said glumly.

  “No, I mean your hands are clean of everything. You’ve never killed anyone…ever.”

  Brett’s head tilted and he leaned back in his chair like a bad smell had just wafted through the room. His eyes studied me as I finished with the computer and plugged the drive that Simmons had given me into the USB port. Slowly, he leaned forward with his elbows on the table and worked his lips as if rediscovering how to form words.

  “What exactly are you getting at?” he finally asked.

  Turning the computer around, I pressed the spacebar and allowed the video to play for him. On the screen was an image of an older Trent since the last time Brett had seen him. “My name is Trent Williams, and I’ve done something terrible…”

  In the Arizona desert, time had gotten away from the young Brett and Tara as the party slowed down and dawn approached. Many of the cars had already left with only a handful of people still drinking and enjoying the waning fire. Brett, Peter and Tara were the only three still sitting near the shooting range after everyone left and Trent slept off the booze in his car. All the beer had gotten to Brett too as the last thing he remembered was sitting down with the gun to load a few rounds and suddenly feeling nauseous. He decided to lie down until his stomach stopped turning summersaults.

  He kept his eyes closed to help, but he soon passed out. With Brett lying in the dirt, Peter decided that Tara was now fair game. He knew that she had been eyeing his brother all night, but now it was his chance to move in on her. Brett couldn’t do anything if he was unconscious, and Tara was extremely attractive. Trent returned and picked up the gun to fire off a few rounds while Peter started hitting on his sister.

  “Why don’t we go back to your brother’s car and have a little fun. Everyone else was hooking up tonight. There’s no reason you and I shouldn’t get a little action too.”

  The only problem was that Tara wasn’t even slightly interested in sleeping with Peter. For starters, she informed him that she wasn’t a ‘damn slut’, and—if that wasn’t enough—she had really liked talking to Brett. She thought he was cute and had hoped he might ask her out. Brett was sweet and she could tell how shy he was. It would be funny to talk about their first night together when he passed out drunk, if they started dating. And if he didn’t ask her out, she was going to ask him to a movie when he woke up.

  Peter wasn’t happy to hear her rejection and pressed the issue again. Scooting in close to her, he rubbed his hand along her thigh and asked for sex again. Again, she didn’t give the answer he wanted. In fact, she outright refused him and smacked his hand away in disgust. He didn’t like that and forced himself on her as he tried to kiss her. Grappling with him, Tara pushed back and slapped him across the face.

  Angered, Peter fought harder to get what he wanted whether she liked it or not. Shoving Tara onto the ground, he pinned her to the ground and tore her shirt apart, exposing her bra. He pulled the straps over her shoulders to free her breasts as she fought to escape. With her arms pinned under his weight, she was too weak to free herself and screamed for help. Alerted to what was happening, her brother shoved Peter who smashed his elbow into Tara’s would-be rescuer’s face. Trent stumbled backwards as he tried to get past the stars filling his vision.

  Before she could get to her feet to run, Peter re-acquired his position on top of Tara to finish what he’d started. “Stop struggling, bitch. Just lay back and enjoy what daddy’s going to give you. I’ve been watching you all night. I know you want it.”

  “I’m going to call the cops, asshole!” These words stopped Peter in his tracks as he stared down at her. Without response, Peter rose to his feet and walked over to where Trent and fallen. As he paced, Tara started to dial her phone as her face streaked with tears. She shook from sobs at what had happened.

  Before she completed dialing 9-1-1, she heard something animalistic in Peter’s voice. “It’s in your best interest to hang up the fucking phone before you make things worse.”

  Appalled at what had transpired, Tara asked how he could do anything worse to her. He’d tried to rape her and she was not going to let him get away with it. Trent rolled over to help his sister, as a united front against her attacker, when he heard the loud click of Peter sliding a loaded magazine into his Dad’s pistol.

  He watched Peter’s arm raise with the gun pointing at Tara just before two rapid flashes came out of the muzzle. His sister’s chest exploded as she was knocked backwards. Screaming her name, Trent sprang to his feet to rush to her aid. He had to stop the bleeding, but he was stopped in his tracks when Peter stepped in his way with the gun now pointing at him. What happened next would forever fill Trent’s life with guilt.

  “You have two options,” said Peter. “You can help me out of this, or you can die right here…right now.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Okay, if that’s how you feel.” Peter’s finger started to squeeze the trigger, but Trent urged him to wait. He wanted to save his sister and have Peter pay for what he’d done, but the fear of death played tricks on people. It had a way of making people agree to things that made them sick because nobody wants to die.

  “Fine,” whispered Trent.

  “Speak up. I didn’t hear that.”

  “I said I’ll do it. Please don’t kill me.”

  Trent sat helpless with his sister as she drew her final breaths while her murderer started working up the story for the police. He placed the gun in Brett’s hand as he concocted a tale that left Brett as the person behind Tara’s death. In exchange for Trent’s life, he was instructed to say that he’d watched Tara repeatedly rebuff Brett’s sexual advances and then he found him standing over her body with the gun.

  To ensure Trent stuck to the story, Peter looked him square in the face and said that he would still kill him if he didn’t do what he was told. “You’ll suffer her fate if the truth ever comes out,” he said. After those words, Trent spen
t the rest of his life feeling like a silent stalker was constantly watching him.

  Through every passing day after her death, Trent wanted to come clean and save an innocent man from persecution. But each time he thought about telling the truth, the haunting memory of Peter’s eyes would leave him trembling. He hated the coward he’d become after that night, but he was too frightened to do anything about it for a very long time. The guilt weighed heavily on him as he watched Brett accept that he killed Tara although he had no memory of ever mistreating her. Peter’s plan had worked so far as to convince his own brother that he’d killed a girl.

  “I wanted to tell the court the truth as I testified,” Trent said on the computer monitor. “But I could see Peter in the room as he stared back at me. His eyes were filled with a darkness that I can only describe as pure evil. I truly feared that he would kill me right there in front of all of them if I didn’t stick to my script. So, I did as I was told.”

  “Years later—after witnessing a mugging that ended in death—I again found myself giving testimony on what I’d witnessed. Word got out to the suspects’ partners, and I started getting threats. I couldn’t let another murderer go free, so I testified in exchange for protective custody.”

  “That’s when I was moved to Kansas City, and after befriending the judge from Tara’s case all those years ago, I realized that Peter no longer knew where to find me. I found strength in my friendship with him and in meeting my girlfriend that I knew I could finally tell the truth about that night in the desert. And that is what I planned on doing, but when I went to Joseph’s recently, I saw a man outside his home that reminded me of Peter. I’m recording this now as a way of safeguarding the story in case anything happens. When I know it’s safe, I’ll take it to the police. Brett deserves the truth.”

  “MOTHER FUCKER!!” Brett screamed at the computer screen. “How the hell could he do this to me…to her?” Instead of calming him, we let his emotions flow in whatever way they needed. I couldn’t imagine finding out the last twenty years of your life were a lie. I felt bad for him, but we needed his tirade to push him to cooperate with us in bringing his brother into custody.