Just as she was rounding the corner into the living room to call the kids, she saw Ethan’s headlights pulling into the driveway. She dashed out the front door to greet him. He stumbled out of his car, looking a bit disheveled, and her heart sank. When he started towards her, she couldn’t quite make out the look on his face. Had he been drinking? He walked up to her, scooped her up and hugged her tightly.
“Ethan, you’re scaring me. What happened today? You look awful,” she said.
“I felt awful, Sarah. It didn’t go well. I’m not going to lie to you. I blew it, but I made a few calls tonight, and I think I saved us and the app.” Ethan looked up to see his children’s faces pressed up against the front window. He smiled and said, “Let’s get the kids to bed, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Chapter 8
Present Day
Jennifer couldn’t sleep at all. Although she had finally breathed through the panic attack, she couldn’t help but worry about the blood stain on the fence. How could she have forgotten about something so important? She had a gut feeling that it was at least worth mentioning. She sat transfixed in thought over the events spanning the last few days. The fire, the Ashton children, finding out about Ethan, and her talk with Suzanne.
A common theme that kept popping up along the way was that in her new-motherhood haze, she had become slightly self-absorbed. She made a pact to herself to start being a better friend, a better wife, and a better neighbor. She knew she shouldn’t be too hard on herself; caring for a little one could be all-encompassing. However, if she tried even a little, she might be on the path to finding herself again. While she was exhausted, she appreciated the time and space to think things through for a bit.
The sun had just started to peek out over the horizon, and her early-bird hubby started to stir. He turned over and was startled by the sight of Jennifer just sitting up in bed.
“What’s wrong, Jen? Did you have another panic attack?” Peter asked.
“I did,” Jennifer responded.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” Peter asked as he sat up. He looked concerned.
“It was 3 AM, babe. I didn’t want to wake you. I worked my way through it, though,” she replied. She hesitated for a bit, then asked, “Do you think you can take a personal day today?”
Peter’s face turned from concerned to perplexed. “Sure,” he said. “There’s not much going on at the office today. Why? What’s going on? Are you sure you’re okay?”
Jennifer hesitated again to answer. She didn’t want her husband to think she was crazy, but she had to tell him that she was planning on going to the police.
She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Pete, I’m okay,” she said. “I saw something, and I think it’s something the police should know about. I don’t know why, but my gut is telling me that they need to know. Something seems off about this whole murder-suicide scenario. I don’t think Ethan did it.”
She actually had just been planning on telling Peter about the blood, and had blurted out the rest. It was true, though. She didn’t know why, and she didn’t know how she was going to prove it, but she thought Ethan was innocent.
“Wait, Jen,” Peter replied. “What did you see? I’m not sure I want you getting involved.” Like he had a choice.
“Blood,” she replied.
“Blood! Blood where? How? When?” Peter started to panic.
“It’s probably nothing,” Jennifer said. “When I went out for a walk the night of the fire, I noticed there was blood on the fence. This was before we found out about Ethan. Anyway, the blood looked semi-fresh, and while it could be anyone or anything that left it there, the police should know.”
“Listen, Jen,” Peter said. “I don’t want to think Ethan could have murdered his wife, either. But I think it’s time to face the facts. The police seemed to have called it, and will likely close the case soon. They have other things to worry about.”
Jennifer was starting to get angry. She knew she sounded crazy, but she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t say something. “Pete,” she said, trying to keep her tone measured to avoid a fight. “This is something I have to do. I’ll give you full bragging rights if it turns out to be nothing. You can tell the story every year and at every holiday about the time Jennifer called the police because she found strawberry jam on her deceased neighbor’s fence and went all wild with her true crime theories. I can’t sleep. I need to get this off my chest.”
Peter knew better than to argue with Jennifer when she had made up her mind and set her sights on something. Heck, who was he to stand in the way of her feeling better about this, and maybe getting some sleep?
“All right, lady,” he said. “Go and get this off your chest.”
Jennifer squeezed her husband around the neck. “Thank you for understanding me,” she said. “I love you.”
She started to dash off to the shower, but stopped and went to the kitchen first to make some coffee for her guy.
As Jennifer pulled into the parking lot of the police station, her nerves were at an all-time high. Her hands were shaking, her heart was racing, and she was sweating in places she hadn’t even known existed.
She tried to walk across the parking lot as casually as possible, pretending that she knew where to go, whom to talk to, and how to report what she had seen. Why was being around the police so intimidating?
She instantly felt relief at the sight of Jimmy standing by the building as she approached the front door.
“Hi, Jennifer,” Jimmy said cheerfully. “What brings you here today?”
“Well, Jimmy,” she started, “that’s something I was hoping to talk to the chief about, but maybe you can help direct me.”
“Of course!” he exclaimed. “You really bailed me out yesterday at the press conference. Anything for you.”
He was sweet. Jennifer worried about such a sweet boy being an officer. Hopefully they would keep him safe and stick him on parking ticket duty for life. Jennifer thought about Jimmy’s mom and wondered if she hoped the same thing.
“Jimmy,” she began. “I saw something at the crime scene, and while I don’t know if it’s evidence, I think someone should check it out.”
“What did you see?” Jimmy asked.
“I saw what I strongly believe is blood on the fence of the Ashton home,” she replied.
“Alright,” Jimmy said, seemingly taking her seriously. “Let’s get you in to see the chief ASAP.”
His demeanor had changed from sweet and cheery to concerned and professional in an instant. Maybe he wasn’t meant for parking ticket duty after all.
Jimmy ushered Jennifer past the front desk clerk, who had a look of sheer confusion at the sight of a rookie escorting a well-dressed young woman into the building. When she walked into the main part of the precinct, Jennifer was surprised to see how boring and sterile it looked.
She had pictured hardened criminals in cuffs sitting in the waiting area, ready to be booked. She’d also thought there would be some sort of a holding cell on the main floor that contained the town drunk sleeping it off, and disheveled-looking detectives with ties hanging loose around their necks, smoking cigarettes and talking about the latest case.
Jennifer chuckled at herself. Essentially, what she had always assumed the inside of a police station looked like was based on eighties movies and really old episodes of Investigation Forensics.
In reality, the precinct was one large square room with clusters of small cubicles in the center. Offices, file rooms, interview rooms, and a conference room lined the walls surrounding the cubicles. The smell of coffee and fresh copies had hit Jennifer when she first walked in. It wasn’t exactly what she had pictured, but nothing was these days.
Jimmy asked Jennifer to take a seat in the large conference room and said, “I’ll go get the chief. Hang tight.”
Jennifer wondered why Jimmy
didn’t take her directly to Chief Fitzgerald. Maybe it was to spare her feelings. Maybe the two of them were laughing at her right now. Her throat started to get dry as she anxiously awaited the chief’s arrival. She had only been in his company once, aside from the press conference yesterday. It was at one of the neighborhood parties. He’d seemed nice enough to those he knew, but was very unapproachable to outsiders. Jennifer was definitely an outsider.
After what seemed like an eternity, the chief entered the room with Jimmy following. He seemed like he was in a rush. Jennifer stood to shake his hand.
“No time for any of that,” he barked. “Let’s just get down to business. I’m Chief Fitzgerald. You know Jimmy. What’s this about blood, or supposed blood?”
He was everything Jennifer had expected and more, which was why she was so anxious. The chief was in his late 60s. He was a former Marine with a commanding presence, a square jaw, and a tight haircut. There was never a wrinkle in his uniform or a smudge on his shoes.
“Well,” Jennifer began, “I was out for a walk the night of the fire. I stopped in front of the Ashton house to check to see if there was a window open.”
“What?” the chief interrupted. “Why would you do something like that? Of what consequence is an open window?”
Jennifer flushed. She hadn’t been planning to get into full detail on how she had come across the blood, but her nerves overtook her and she started to spill. By the end of the meeting, she half-expected herself to confess to stealing that candy bar when she was a kid, or all of the times she and her friends had snuck her mom’s wine coolers during sleepovers when she was fourteen.
“I guess I was just curious,” Jennifer replied. “I was out for a walk earlier that day, when the fire was burning. It seemed to have burned rather quickly, which I thought was unusual.”
“Oh, I see,” the chief said as he leaned back in his chair with an amused look on his face. “I bet you’re one of those armchair detectives. The kind who watch a few episodes of those forensic shows and now you think you can solve crimes.”
Truth be told, it was way more than a few. She wasn’t going to admit to anything now; otherwise, he might not take her seriously. His condescending tone miffed her a bit.
Jennifer sat up straight, looked Chief Fitzgerald dead in the eye and said, “Listen, I can’t get a fire to start in my own fireplace half the time. My brother lectured me once about fires and how they need oxygen to burn. I thought back to that lecture later on in the day, and that’s how I remembered seeing the window open. I wasn’t wrong, though, was I? It did burn quickly, and the window was open. It was arson.”
To Jennifer’s surprise, a wide smile broke out across the chief’s face. She tried to make eye contact with Jimmy to see if she could gauge what that meant, but he averted his gaze.
The chief let out a hearty laugh and smacked the table playfully. “I was only half-right about you,” he said. “You’re not an armchair detective. You’re an armchair fire chief!” He continued to laugh at his own joke and looked at Jimmy, who laughed nervously with him.
Jennifer’s blood ran hot with anger. She almost told him in some very colorful language the orifices into which he could stick various sharp objects, but she bit her tongue. She didn’t want to make an enemy of her town’s chief of police. Her face, however, likely wasn’t hiding her thoughts very well. She hoped he wouldn’t notice.
The chief must have realized that he had insulted Jennifer, and while she was a bit of a nuisance at the moment, she was doing her duty as a concerned citizen. So, as quickly as his laugh had begun, it stopped. Jennifer thought that he likely used his unpredictable moods as a tool in the interrogation room.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ve had enough fun now. Can we skip to the part about the blood? Where did you see it?”
“I saw it on the top of one of the fence posts,” she replied, trying not to sound annoyed. “It was mostly dry, but there was still a partially fresh drip running down the post. I was picking a flower from Sarah’s garden to preserve for her children, which is why I was so close to the fence to begin with. It could be nothing, but then again, it could also explain why Ethan wrote a suicide note and then tried burning the house down to cover it up. Maybe Ethan wouldn’t do something like that. It doesn’t make any sense. I checked this morning on my way out, and the blood is still there. I know your case is likely on the way to being closed, but I thought someone should know.”
The chief sat back in his seat and folded his arms. Then he turned to Jimmy and said, “Jimmy, can you please excuse us?”
Jimmy bolted out of the room and went straight to his cube.
“Listen, Miss-”
“Temple. Mrs. Temple,” Jennifer replied. “Mrs. Temple.”
The chief continued, “We’re a small-town precinct. This isn’t like what you see on television. We don’t have a geeky but brilliant scientist just downstairs, processing every piece of evidence we have. Heck, we don’t even have a crime lab in this town. We rely on the one the next town over. Our coroner is an elected official. This new guy at least has earned a medical degree. The last one we had was a retired veterinarian. Ethan left a note, and as you astutely noticed, the house was purposely set on fire. It seems to me like an open and shut case.”
The chief paused. He seemed to be thinking carefully about choosing about his next words. “You’re a spitfire. I like spitfires. I can’t think of one person who’s ever talked to me the way you have and has gotten away with it. I’ll send a team to collect the blood sample. We can at least get a preliminary read to see if it’s even blood. If anything fishy comes up in the autopsy—”
“You ordered autopsies?” Jennifer interrupted. “Why? I thought this was an open and shut case.”
“Of course I did,” Chief Fitzgerald said, sounding offended. “It’s an open and shut case, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t cover my bases. As you pointed out, there may be some inconsistencies. I’m just chalking it up to Ethan being a smart computer science guy simply lacking common sense. Now, as I was saying, if the autopsy comes up with anything out of the ordinary, I’ll send the blood to the city crime lab for DNA. If it’s blood, that is.” Apparently, he felt the need to add that one last jab of doubt.
“Jimmy!” the chief bellowed. Jimmy came running. “Please escort Mrs. Temple out and then grab Betty and Karl to collect some evidence at the Ashton home.”
Before Jennifer could get out a thank you, the chief was on his way back to his office.
Jimmy looked at Jennifer wide-eyed with amazement. “Remind me never to mess with you,” he said playfully.
“Don’t you forget it,” Jennifer replied with a grin and a wink.
Jennifer felt exhilarated on the short drive home from the police station. Not only had she received confirmation that her arson theory was correct, she had gone toe to toe with the chief of police and earned his respect. She couldn’t wait to get home and tell Peter about the conversation she’d had, and how she had stood her ground. He would be proud.
Then Jennifer realized there was another reason she felt so exhilarated. She was kid-free for the first time in weeks, if not months. She loved William and staying at home, but darn, it was nice to be alone for a bit. She decided to make the most of it and stop by the local bookstore to read for a bit and maybe grab a coffee. Peter would have to wait a short while for her triumphant story.
Chapter 9
Jennifer spent a lovely afternoon indulging in some self-care. She stopped by Mabel’s Book Store as planned and then treated herself to a pedicure. She purchased a gift certificate to the nail salon for Suzanne, as well as a book about dealing with loss and grief.
As she was pulling into her driveway, she saw that there was a squad car still at the Ashtons’ house. She saw Jimmy and what looked like technicians combing through the front yard.
Jimmy waved her down before she could go int
o the house. “Jennifer! Blood!” he yelled as he ran over.
Jennifer had no choice but to laugh at how ridiculous her life had become. A young police officer was running up to her yelling the word ‘blood’, and it piqued her interest.
“Blood? Did you use luminol?” she asked excitedly.
“Ah, watching too much Investigation Forensics, I see,” Jimmy teased. “We used Hemastix, actually. Luminol can react to too many substances, and it only glows for a few seconds. It’s not an ideal test for the daytime. Luckily, we have these. It’s not one hundred percent, but it’s enough to get the rest of the sample sent to be tested.” He shook the bottle of Hemastix with a wide grin on his face.
“Yes! Well done, Jimmy!” Jennifer exclaimed. She and Jimmy gave each other a high-five. “Awesome work. Thanks for your help today.”
“You’re welcome,” Jimmy replied. He was blushing. “Hopefully, this sample helps.”
“Helps? Helps what? Ethan did it, right?” Jennifer asked, looking at Jimmy inquisitively.
“Right,” he replied with a bit of hesitation in his voice. He wasn’t very convincing.
“Jimmy, do you think Ethan was murdered too? Do you know something?” Jennifer asked.
“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just my—”
“Gut,” Jennifer interrupted. “It’s your gut.”
“Yeah,” he replied reluctantly. “I guess something like that. I’ve heard the talk around town, same as you. From what I can tell, Ethan seemed happy and optimistic. It just doesn’t add up.”
Jennifer looked at Jimmy in a whole different light. He wasn’t a boy, he was a man, and a smart one at that. Parking ticket duty would be a waste for him.
“I have the same gut feeling,” she said. “I also have a sneaking suspicion that Peter does too. As a matter of fact, he recalled Ethan mentioning an old associate named Vinny Malone calling him just a few weeks ago.”
Red Picket Fences Page 5
