Comfort Me

by Debbie Viguié

  “Your parents own a bat signed by Babe Ruth?” he asked.

  She nodded. “It’s their pride and joy. Or, was, I guess. They loved that thing. They loved it more than...anything.”

  A bitter note crept into her voice at the end.

  “They named your brother for the baseball poem. I’m guessing they named you for Babe Ruth?”

  “That’s right,” she whispered.

  “A family of baseball fanatics,” he mused.

  “Not a family, just them. I hate baseball. Casey doesn’t care about it. Of course, that broke them up, just like...everything did. They thought they’d have a son who grew up to be a famous baseball player, you know?”

  She was rambling, her anger and grief all rolled into one and spilling out indiscriminately. That was fine. You could often learn a lot more by just listening to someone in the aftermath of a tragedy than by trying to ask them a lot of questions.

  “Nope. We were both disappointments,” she said heatedly.

  She glanced up at him and then hurriedly back down again. She became fixated on the tissues wadded up in her hand.

  “Do you think your brother took the bat?” Mark asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Do you think he hit them with it?”

  “No! I mean, maybe, I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore,” she said. She started crying again and Mark eased back, giving her a moment. He had more questions and even if it took a while they would eventually get through all of them.

  ~

  Cindy handed her new boss the letter she’d just typed up. “Here’s the letter you dictated,” she said, trying to keep her voice pleasant.

  He didn’t say anything and after a few seconds she turned to go.

  “Wait, I didn’t dismiss you,” he said.

  She turned back, biting her tongue to keep from snapping at him. She stood there and he picked up the letter. He began to read it over, his brow puckering.

  “The second paragraph is no good, it will have to be reworked,” he said, handing it back to her.

  “Okay, what would you like me to say?” she asked.

  He looked up at her and glared. “Don’t ask me, just go fix it and bring it back.”

  She stood there for a moment, stunned. It was his own words he was objecting to. How did he expect her to fix it?

  He waved his hand at her, as though shooing her out of his office. Infuriated she turned and walked out, nearly slamming the door behind her.

  She made it back to her desk and sat down with a frustrated sigh.

  “I’m sorry,” she heard Leo say from the cube next door.

  “Thanks.”

  “Let me guess. He hates his own writing.”

  “Apparently.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but he’s likely to hate your writing even more.”

  “Gee, thanks,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her words.

  “Just a heads up. I’d hate to have you march back in there thinking everything was going to be all better once he saw how you turned his drudgery into poetry.”

  She actually laughed a little at that. “Well, I’m not sure this memo could be turned into poetry even by an expert.”

  “You’d be surprised what a great poet or artist can do with trash. In fact, I hear that there are fancy art galleries in the big cities that have displays of trash and charge quite a lot for them.”

  Cindy smiled. “Maybe I’ll just crumple this up, glue it to a piece of wood, and title it ‘Ode to Corporate Time Wasting’.”

  “And you said you weren’t a poet,” Leo teased.

  At least there was one person in the place who wasn’t a total jerk. She took a deep breath. That wasn’t fair. She’d only really met three, counting the security guard. Hopefully there were more people like Leo than like that guy and Mr. Cartwright.

  She opened up the Word document and set about trying to polish the second paragraph. There wasn’t a lot that could be done with it, but at least she’d give it her best shot. She owed it to corporate poets everywhere.

  ~

  Jeremiah was worried about Mark. The detective was fraying around the edges and it was only a matter of time before he lost it and did something stupid or negligent. What made things worse was that he wasn’t sure how he could help him. He needed to figure out a way to help Mark, though, or risk losing his friend to the darkness that so often devoured those pushed past their limits.

  Thanks to the events of the morning he was now also worried about Liam. The Irishman was tall, strong, and not the kind to go down without a fight. That and the absence of bruising on Liam’s hands suggested to Jeremiah that whoever had attacked him had caught him off guard and knocked him out before beating him. Something that vicious pointed toward someone with a grudge and probably a history of violence. It could be a random act of violence, but Jeremiah’s gut told him otherwise.

  The attack could be work related. Someone Liam had put away could be out and looking for payback or be angry enough to have someone else exact revenge for him. If that was the case then Mark could be in danger as well since the two were partners. Of course, it could also be related to an arrest Liam made before he became a detective. Jeremiah would have to ask Mark if anyone who might bear a grudge against either of them had been recently released. That wouldn’t do anything to ease the detective’s anxiety, unfortunately.

  The other option was that this was not job related and entirely personal. The big man was friendly, outgoing, and also had a lot he didn’t share about himself and his family. It was obvious to Jeremiah. He was fairly certain that Liam himself had nothing to hide. He wasn’t sure the same could be said for his kin. Sometimes family baggage found a way to land on the one person who didn’t deserve it.

  He decided that after he swung by the shop he would see if he could find the place where Liam had been attacked and try to glean anything he could. That was if the police didn’t get there first and tape off the scene or accidentally destroy clues.

  He briefly thought about doing that first, but it would only take him a minute to go to Tea Thyme and lock up. The site of Liam’s attack would be close by and he might glean something by walking the path Rebecca had when she went to find Liam.

  He parked about half a block from the shop. Liam’s car was there and Jeremiah parked several spaces away from it. Jeremiah began to carefully scrutinize everything as he got out of his car. From the shop there was no line of sight to Liam’s car or the sidewalk that he would have been walking on once he parked.

  Jeremiah walked in the street, keeping close enough to the sidewalk to look for tell-tale blood stains but staying far enough away to hopefully keep from contaminating the scene. He was surveying the scene as he walked, but his objective was still to go lock up the shop first before giving the area a thorough examination.

  The first thing he found, though, stopped him in his tracks. It wasn’t on the sidewalk. Rather it was on the cement parking bumper that was a few inches away from the curb. There were bloody streaks on it as though someone had wiped their shoes on it to free them of the liquid.

  Jeremiah glanced up at the sidewalk. Five feet further on he saw the bloodstained concrete where Liam had fallen and been beaten. Anger flared inside him and he clenched his fists, struggling to keep it in check.

  The marks on the concrete barricade were on the side away from the sidewalk. They stretched far enough along it that he could surmise that either there had been no car parked in the space at the time of the incident or there had been something very narrow there such as a motorcycle.

  Jeremiah cast his eyes back toward the street. There was a single skid mark there that looked fresh. He moved over to it, bent down, and could smell the unmistakable scent of burnt rubber. A single track such as that was definitely a motorcycle, likely someone speeding away.

  He gave the spot a wide berth and moved to where he could observe the sidewalk. There was indeed a sizeable pool
of blood. Aside from that the only thing he could see that was out of place was a few yellow rose petals on the ground nearby.

  Rebecca said that Liam had told her he was bringing her something. Was it flowers? If so, where had they gone? She hadn’t had anything like that with her in the waiting room. It was possible someone could have come by and picked up a bouquet. Although the blood nearby would scare off most people.

  He turned and glanced up the street. There wasn’t a lot of traffic this time of morning. There weren’t any nearby buildings with obvious cameras that could show them what had happened. The forensics team should be arriving soon if they weren’t already swamped somewhere else.

  He decided to walk the rest of the short distance to her shop and lock up. A few quick strides brought him to the front door which was closed. The sign in the front window declared the store as open. He frowned. Rebecca must have forgotten that she had flipped it over. He pulled the door open and stepped inside.

  He reached for the open sign to turn it over, but his hand froze an inch from it. His eyes probed the room quickly. Someone had been there before him. The place had been searched.

  5

  Jeremiah stood just inside the shop and looked around as he debated his options. The logical thing to do would be to alert the police, or at least to let Mark know to do so. Without Rebecca there it wouldn’t be easy for them to tell if anything was missing. He had a feeling that it would be hard to pull her away from the hospital, though, until she knew Liam was going to be okay.

  He moved gingerly into the room and rounded the counter. Her purse was where she’d said it would be, but it had clearly been rifled through. He couldn’t help but wonder if the attack on Liam had been a grudge against him or just a ploy to lure Rebecca away from the shop.

  He shook his head. Whoever had done this could have gone through her shop the night before or early that morning without having to put a policeman in the hospital. While it seemed likely the two incidents were connected he couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone had come to her shop, realized that no one was there, and rummaged around looking for something to steal. He wanted to check her purse to see if her money and credit cards had been stolen but he didn’t have gloves with him and he couldn’t risk obliterating any fingerprints the intruder might have left behind.

  He pulled out his cell phone and called Mark. The detective didn’t answer. He must have his hands full at the crime scene Jeremiah had dropped him off at. He left a terse message and then called the burner phone he’d left with Rebecca.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  “Hi, it’s Jeremiah. I have some bad news. I’m at your shop and someone has searched it. It looks like they went through all your drawers and cabinets and they searched your purse as well.”

  “What?! Did they take anything?”

  “I can’t tell that. I’m going to let the police know so they can check for fingerprints. Until then I’m not going to touch anything. You need to be here to help them figure out what’s missing.”

  “But Liam-”

  “Would be the first person to tell you that you need to help the police as quickly as you can so whoever did this can be found…especially if it’s the same person who attacked him.”

  “You think they could be connected?” she asked, her voice shaking slightly.

  “I think the timing is suspicious,” he said.

  Which was true, and she really did need to be here to speak with the police as they went through her shop. He knew that if he was in her shoes the only thing that would move him from that hospital was the possibility of catching the person who had put his loved one in there.

  “I’m going to wait until the police get here and then I’ll come pick you up and bring you here. Then I’ll go back to the hospital and call you the second there’s any news.”

  “Okay,” she said reluctantly.

  “Alright. I’ll be there shortly.”

  He hung up. He tried calling Mark back and this time the detective answered.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice on edge.

  “Someone’s been in Rebecca’s shop before I got here. The place has been searched. You’re going to need the forensics team to go over things here as well as outside.”

  “Lovely,” Mark said sarcastically. He sighed. “Fine, give me a minute.”

  “I told her that I’d come pick her up so she can help the police figure out what might be missing,” Jeremiah said.

  “Good.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Things are…messy…here,” Mark said.

  That was not a way in which Mark normally described things. It piqued his curiosity but now was not the time to press for details. “Okay, call me if you need something.”

  “Thanks,” Mark said.

  Jeremiah ended the call and then stepped back outside to wait for the police. Fortunately they arrived shortly. Jeremiah recognized one of the uniformed officers who he’d seen before at other crime scenes. The man walked straight up to Jeremiah.

  “Detective Walters said you’d be waiting for us.”

  Jeremiah nodded and indicated the shop. “I entered and discovered that the place had been searched prior to my arrival.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “Only the door.”

  Two more officers were busy setting up a barricade around the blood-stained sidewalk where Liam had been attacked.

  “There’s blood stains also on the one concrete parking bumper and fresh tire tread on the ground,” Jeremiah said, unable to help himself. He hated having to share the things he observed with the police. Ordinarily he would have confided only in Mark and let him handle things, but today was different. Mark wasn’t here and he owed it to Liam to do all that he could to help ensure his attacker was found.

  “Thanks. Always good to have you around,” the officer said offhandedly.

  Jeremiah winced inwardly. Those kind of observations by others were what he tried to avoid. Honestly at this point he wasn’t sure why he even kept trying.

  Because even though it feels like the whole world knows my secret in reality only six people do, he reminded himself. He didn’t want that number growing so he had to remain careful, vigilant.

  “I’m going to go pick up Rebecca, the owner, at the hospital and bring her back here,” Jeremiah told the officer.

  “Thanks, that will be very helpful,” he said as he pulled a pair of gloves out of his pocket.

  Jeremiah nodded and then hurried to his car before any of the other officers could engage him in conversation. Rebecca was the one who needed to be here, not him. The sooner he had her here the sooner he could relax a little.

  The drive to the hospital was short and to her credit Rebecca was waiting just inside the emergency room door. As soon as he pulled up outside she ran out and got in his car.

  “The sooner we get there the sooner you can get back here and stay on top of the doctors,” she said, her voice tight.

  Jeremiah nodded and hit the gas even as she was still buckling her seatbelt. “No word yet I take it.”

  “None,” she said. “I just want to grab one of the nurses and slap them until they talk.”

  “I doubt they know anything,” Jeremiah said.

  “Why do you think I haven’t done it yet?” she asked tartly.

  Jeremiah glanced at her sideways out of the corner of his eye. She was sitting, every muscle rigid. She dressed like one would expect the owner of a tea shop to dress, right down to ruffles on her blouse and the floral print on her skirt. She looked delicate, like fine bone china. It was his understanding, though, that she was former military. It was certainly showing in the way she was holding her spine and the steely resolve and aggression in her voice.

  Offhand he’d say that Liam had found his match. A nice girl with refinement who could probably give him a run for his money in a fair fight. He hadn’t had the opportunity to see them together bu
t from what he knew of Liam and what he was observing of her, the extrapolations his mind was coming up with made a lot of sense.

  “I’ll stay on top of them once I get back to the hospital. If you want, I’ll even rough up one of the doctors a bit,” he said, his voice kind with a hint of teasing.

  She turned to him sharply and stared at him intently before relaxing slightly into her seat. “Let’s not escalate until they give us reason to,” she said.

  “Understood. Will save the enhanced interrogation until provoked.”

  She laughed. “Liam was right. You are interesting.”

  He forced himself to smile. “Well, you know, us interesting types have to stick together.”

  “I guess so,” she said, sighing and then turning to stare out the window.

  “The best thing you can do is give the police as much detail you can about everything, including anything that was taken from your shop or even moved.”

  “I know the drill,” she said. “Liam and I met because I saw a murder a few weeks ago.”

  “I am aware.”

  “Is Mark there?”

  “No, he’s at a homicide they were called to earlier this morning.”

  “I wish that’s where Liam was right now.”

  “We all do.”

  “I can’t help but think that if he hadn’t come to see me before work-”

  “Don’t think that way. Especially not until we know what happened, who did this and why. For all we know the fact that he was attacked so close to where you were and that you came out looking for him could have even saved his life,” Jeremiah told her.

  That was, if it hadn’t been a complete random crime. If someone had been targeting him it’s possible that if they’d jumped him somewhere else they might actually have managed to kill him.

  Assuming that had been the intent of the attacker. The beating was brutal enough that it was believable that was the intent.

  Jeremiah tried to push the thoughts from his mind. There wasn’t enough information to let his thoughts mull over in any rational way. His energy was best spent elsewhere until there was.