by Lois Lavrisa
“Now it’s my turn to ask you some questions.” He grinned.
“Fine,” I said. Although I was worried about what he might ask. “Looks like our lunch is here.”
The waitress placed a patty melt with crispy chips in front of me, and an Italian sub with fries by Jacob. Before she left, she put the bill on the table. Jacob slid it over to his side of the table.
Jacob said, “At the memorial reception, I walked around and talked to a lot of people.”
“I know, I appreciate your help in trying to figure out what happened to Francesca and Mark,” I said, then popped a chip in my mouth.
“Right. That too. Listen, everyone said, without a doubt, you were Francesca’s best friend. You did everything together. Is that true?” He put down his sub then wiped his mouth on a napkin.
“Yes,” I said.
“So you were best friends?”
“Yes. But why are you asking about Francesca and my friendship? Weren’t you supposed to be finding out who killed her?” I asked.
“I was. But I also had some personal things to figure out too,” he said.
“Like what?” I took a big bite of my patty melt.
“Who, besides Francesca, killed my father?” he said as he gazed at me.
I had a bite in my mouth, half way through a swallow as he said that. The bite of sandwich lodged immovable as I tried to gasp for air. I wanted to gag, but nothing happened. My heart rate went up and dizziness overcame me in a panic as I choked on my sandwich. Jacob jumped from his seat, and did the Heimlich on me. As soon as the bite of food became unstuck, I breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently seeing what had happened, the manager came over, and several patrons gathered around us. Embarrassment overcame me, and I tried to compose myself.
“I’m okay. Thank you. I’m fine,” I said as I waved them away. My throat was sore as I chugged some water. “I think I’m done with lunch.”
“That’s fine, we can leave,” Jacob said as he paid the bill. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I felt so low that I could walk under a pregnant ant. Francesca and I killed Jacob’s father. This meant he was the blackmailer.
This also meant that he and I were each other’s alibi for Francesca’s murder. Except now the only way to clear him, was for me to go to the police and tell them what happened four years ago at the truck stop.
My mind raced as we left the restaurant.
“Let’s take a walk. Are you okay?” Jacob brushed my hair from my face.
No. I killed your father. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Why don’t we go there?” Jacob pointed to the lake path. “Listen, I need to know one more thing.”
It was only a matter of time until the blackmailer figured out my involvement.
“Four years ago, around August, did you go to an all night truck stop and diner outside of Englewood?” He stopped walking.
I said nothing. I hung my head. My body felt as though it could shrivel up and sink into a crack in the ground.
“Here is where you tell me no.” He lifted my chin.
I couldn’t speak.
“And?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Let me help you then. You say you were not involved in my father’s death. Because Mark was the one who put the money under the mailbox. It wasn’t you. Right?” Jacob asked.
My breath caught in my chest.
“But when I talked to everyone, they said Mark and Francesca had only recently met. They didn’t know each other four years ago. Help me out here CiCi. Tell me it wasn’t you.”
Fear welled in my eyes and tears slipped down my cheeks. A wave of sadness came over me, I was such a miserable lowlife that I didn’t deserve him or anyone else. I belonged behind bars for the rest of my life. I numbly shook my head. What complete irony, I thought Jacob was a murderer of my friends, when in fact I was the killer of his dad.
Jacob stomped his foot. “Shit.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” To the inner core of my soul, I was sorry.
“Sorry? For killing my father?” He kicked the ground.
“He tried to hurt us.” I didn’t try to make an excuse, but tried to clarify the circumstance in which it happened.
“No you’re wrong. He would never do that. Never,” Jacob screamed.
“But, he did. He had a knife,” I pleaded. “He grabbed Francesca, he threatened us, and we couldn’t get out of the cab.”
“You’re lying. You killed my father. You and Francesca. I can’t even look at you,” he shouted. He turned on his heels then bolted down the path.
Clouds swallowed the sky, wind pushed leaves in the air, and waves smashed against the shoreline. Through tear-drenched eyes, I watched him leave. At confession, Father O’Doul had said I would know when it was time to confess my sin.
I pulled Detective Wurkowski’s card out of my wallet, and dialed his number.
When he answered. I said, “It’s Cecilia Cole. I’m turning myself in for murder.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Because you’ve confessed to a murder, I have to make a few phone calls. We’ll let you sit in the booking area. You can wait there with Detective Gentry,” Detective Wurkowski said.
“Fine.” I sat on a hard plastic bench outside the holding cells. The past I had hidden from for so long was now exposed. My life would never be the same, but then again, after the murder it never was anyway. A lump in my stomach seemed to grow into a boulder.
“Before I make the calls, let me repeat back what you told me. The trucker, who you say is Jacob Elmore’s dad, grabbed Francesca’s breast, then pulled a knife out. You two took this as a direct threat to harm you and Francesca. The trucker told you that his passenger door was inoperable, so he blocked the only exit. He had you and Francesca trapped in his cab,” Detective Wurkowski summarized.
An additional officer strolled over to us. Maybe it was a big deal to have a hard working, female citizen without a parking ticket come in off the street and confess murder.
“Yes, sir. That’s how I remember it happening,” I said, my voice barely audible.
“You only took up the tire iron to defend yourself after he pulled out his knife?” he stated, reading from his notes.
“Yes sir. I told you everything I remember. Everything,” I said. My mouth felt like cotton, my stomach rumbled like a bowling alley.
“Ms. Coe, can you wait here until we make some phone calls?” Detective Wurkowski said.
“Yes sir,” I answered. “Do you need to read me my rights? Or put handcuffs on me and lock me up?”
“No.” He smiled. “Do you need to make any calls? The cell reception is not great in here. Do you want to use our land line?” Detective Wurkowski asked.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to get anyone involved. It was my time to own up to what I had done. I refused to yank anyone into the hell I had created. “So, you’re not going to put me in jail?”
“No.”
“But you need to. I’m a criminal.”
“First, it did not happen in our jurisdiction. Second, we have no evidence anything happened. We only have your story. That is why we are going to do some research, and make a few calls.” He furrowed his brows. “You’re welcome to wait out here on the bench.”
“No. I need to be behind bars.”
“Only if that is where you prefer to wait, then you can sit in a cell instead of out here. But that is your choice.”
“Lock me up.”
They led me past offices still buzzing with activity, to the back of the building. We entered through a guarded door to an area with a sign “holding cells.” There were two cells divided by a cinder block wall. The whole area smelled of body odor and stale food. The floors were covered in peeling green paint.
The cell door squeaked when the detective opened it. I walked into the cell. It was a little larger than a bathroom stall. With my head drooped down, I shuffled to a bolted down iron bench covered with a thin h
ard rubber mat. There was a small steel bowl looking object sticking out from a wall. I guessed it was the toilet.
This is where I belonged four years ago. As much as I hid from the murder I had committed, my crime bubbled under the surface, ready to rise up and drag me down.
Now Francesca and Mark were both dead. And it all stemmed from what I had done years ago. My whole body felt drained, as though the life and hope had bled out, leaving just skin and bones.
Also, I thought about Francesca. She didn’t have the chance to tell her story. I hoped that I told it as truthfully and with as much dignity as she deserved.
“CiCi, just so we make this clear, you don’t have to be in here,” Detective Gentry said.
“I understand. But honestly, I feel I need to be here,” I said feeling forlorn.
“Listen, from the statement you made, although you were negligent in going with the trucker, he may have had criminal intent all along. I’m just saying, off the record, hang tight. Just say the word when you want out. Okay?” Detective Gentry said. He motioned toward the door.
I stood next to the bars, unable to see anything through them expect the cinder block wall beyond them.
“Thanks. Really I mean it,” I said.
“Hey Junior, who’s the lady ya got there? Put her with us men, we need a feminine touch in here.” A guy with a gravelly voice taunted in the next cell.
I heard two voices laugh in the cell next to mine.
“Guys, leave her alone,” Detective Gentry shouted to them. Then he said to me, “They’re just a couple of drunks who caused some trouble at the Lake Ness pub. Once they sober up and pay their fine, they’ll be out of here.”
I nodded, then said, “Thank you.”
“Oh, there’s a bottle of water for you in there. Let me know if you need anything. Are you going to be okay?” he offered.
“Sure.” I’d never be the same again. Francesca and Mark were dead because of me, Ken broke our engagement, Estelle and Hazel are losing their homes, and I killed my new boyfriend’s father. Jeez. The life I knew, and had fiercely protected against any alteration, had been distorted wholly and irrevocably.
Chapter Thirty-Five
I curled into a fetal position on the bench, and I attempted to lose myself in sleep. I failed wretchedly. The plastic mat stuck to my skin and crinkled when I moved.
Every noise echoed. The air conditioning blasted like a blow dryer from the ceiling vents. Footsteps outside the door reverberated like an army marching by. And the conversation of my two drunken next door neighbors echoed off the walls.
“I’m telling you man, he can’t come in to our territory and start trouble with us. Hell, I didn’t want to fight. He started it. But no, you and I are here, not Mr. My Shit Don’t Stink,” the gravel voice bellowed from the cell next to me.
“Yeah man. And his suit buddy too. They got no business busting our asses. Can’t a guy ask another guy a question?” the frog voice said. “Ain’t no law against questions.”
Someone burped.
“Yeah. We got rights,” the gravelly voice said.
I heard a slap or clap. Maybe, like all guys, they probably high fived each other.
“They ain’t better than us. No sir. Matter of fucking fact I bet they’re worse than us. ‘Cause you don’t go from nothing to big wig without cutting off people’s balls. It just don’t happen,” the gravelly voice said.
“Damn straight. You’re right man. ‘Cause men like us work our asses off,” the deeper frog like voice said. “We just can’t get ahead. Can’t catch a break.”
“Fuck him. Like, he cut off our balls,” the gravelly voice said. “We didn’t want to work for them anyway.”
“We could work anywhere. We’ve got skills. I mean, I could have done his daughter’s job. Shit,” the frog voice said.
Someone gargled then spit.
“I heard she was knocked up by a married guy. Like fuck his high and mighty attitude, at least we don’t shit on people to get stuff, right man?” the gravelly voice got louder.
“Fire us for stealing some axe. Fuck, like he can’t afford a million of them,” the frog voice said. “Hey buddy. You know I love ya, right? You got my back?”
“Yah. I love ya man,” gravel voice said. “But we ain’t thieves and he can’t prove it. But his shit speaks louder than ours.”
“Ain’t that the goddamn truth man,” the frog voice said. “It’s screw the little people and I don’t mean midgets.”
They both laughed.
An officer walked in. “All right guys. Time to wrap up this party. Get out.”
“Excuse me, gentleman I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but who were you talking about?” I asked as I stood next to the bars.
I heard a metal door unlock. The officer walked down the hall. One tall Willie Nelson looking guy and the other shorter Danny Devito looking one followed the officer.
“Assholes McNally and Pike. Pardon my French ma’am. Why didn’t you tell me you was so cute? Huh?” the Willie Nelson with the frog voice said. He moved closer next to the bars where I stood.
The officer yelled back, as he held the door open, “Keep moving guys.”
“You’re sure a looker. What’s a sweet little young thing like you in for anyway?” The gravel voice Danny Devito man leaned in next to his friend, breath still smelling of alcohol, his hair and clothes disheveled.
“Did you get too many parking tickets in your daddy’s car?” The Willy Nelson with the frog voice laughed. “Huh sweet thing? Why you here?”
“Murder,” I said.
You could have heard the floor paint peel.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Detective Vince Gentry Junior told me that he got in contact with the Englewood police, the place I killed the trucker. The Englewood police wanted a videotaped confession from me. Detective Wurkowski and Detective Gentry sat with me, guiding along with questions, while I gave my full story of the night of the trucker’s death. It took about two hours.
Afterward, when they told me I could leave, I declined. I had nowhere to go, so I went back to the cell. There was so much information, and so many possible clues to Francesca and Mark’s deaths. What I needed to do was sort through them. And now I had information from my jailhouse companion’s conversation. Whether it could be useful or not, I wasn’t sure.
It appeared they had some disagreement with Pike and McNally in the Lake Ness bar tonight. I also gathered that the two drunks were regulars there. Also they had talked about being accused of stealing an axe. Is that why they were fired? They must have worked on phase one of the hospital’s expansion.
McNally and Pike both had interests in the hospital’s expansion project. Jacob worked there until something happened between Francesca and him. Something, like he figured out she killed his dad. But I didn’t know if she knew that he was the blackmailer.
I had been past the hospital dozens of times. There was a mobile home set on the site where Jacob said he changed Friday night and put his necklace.
Presumably the pregnant daughter and married man were Francesca and McNally.
I was suddenly aware of the implications of that. McNally’s mistress pregnant. That would completely destroy him. Then it all came to me. My heart jumped.
Bob McNally had an affair with Francesca. It was probably clandestine, until she became pregnant. If she continued the pregnancy, eventually a baby bump would show. As the mayor’s unmarried daughter, it would be great gossip as to who the father was. So, McNally had to destroy the evidence, before it ruined him. He had to kill her.
Maybe I was reaching here, but he could have been upset with Francesca, and wanted to meet with her the same night I ran into her at H&K’s. So she had me to do the blackmail money drop, while she met with him.
In the meantime, McNally took an axe from the hospital’s construction site. Somehow Mark found out that McNally had an axe, and that same axe was used to kill Francesca. And this is why McNally had to kill Mark. I backed up my
thoughts. How did this chain of events take place?
The mayor was at the funeral home Saturday night. Someone must have told the mayor that the murder weapon was an axe. Maybe the mayor called McNally from the funeral home with the news, and McNally found out Mark was there too and therefore knew about the axe. Maybe he overheard Mark’s conversation with me, when he told me that he knew about the weapon.
So McNally had to kill Mark. My reasoning had some big leaps of faith and I stretched some logic and facts. But somehow I knew I was onto something big. I reviewed the night Francesca was killed, Friday night. When I ran into her at H&K’s, she must have heard from McNally as well as the blackmailer. They both requested meeting her at the same time. She was stuck. Since she was the only one who could meet with McNally, she had me do the money drop. After all, I was part of the reason she was blackmailed.
McNally must have lured her with some plan he’d concocted. He might have said he was divorcing his wife so that he could marry her, since she was having his baby. Or he may have wanted to convince her to have an abortion. Somehow he got her to meet with him. However, all along he had the axe and planned to kill her.
What happened next? I couldn’t picture the murder scene. But her neighbor Doug saw Francesca on her dock. Doug said he had to go to bed. So when he saw her she was alone. Then McNally showed up.
That’s when Ken and I were on the boat, and I saw a figure on the dock. If my assumption was right, it had to be McNally on the dock. He hit her with the axe, knocked her out, and then cut her head off. He had brought along something for her body. Plastic or something, and wrapped her body in it, but her head rolled into the water.
He saw us on the boat and felt pressured and had no time to retrieve her head so he left it in the water. Maybe he hoped her head would sink. And it would have had it not gotten caught in a log. The waves pushed the log, tangled with Francesca’s hair, into the middle of the lake. An hour or so later, Ken’s boat hit it.
My stomach lurched, my heart raced. I sat down.
