She saw a body on the floor in the space between the living room and dining room. Marla Becker, her chest a bloody mess. She saw the legs of a man in the living room, sitting in a chair, but from this angle, she couldn’t see whether he was waiting with a gun to blow them away or if he was dead. She motioned for Chris to knock on the door, then braced herself.
Chris counted to three, then knocked.
“This the police!” he shouted. “We’re coming in!”
The legs didn’t move. No one moved; no one screamed. She feared the worst. That the entire family was dead.
She ran over to Chris and said, “No movement inside.” Jackie motioned for the two deputies to bring the battering rod. They had it ready and she gave them the go-ahead.
They rammed the door. The cheap lock cracked and opened immediately. Chris and Jackie ran in, guns drawn. She took left, Chris took right.
Marla Becker was indeed dead, her eyes glassy. Carlo Becker was in a chair in the living room, his head half gone, blood spatter on the wall behind him. It was damn hard to kill yourself with a shotgun, but he’d done it.
She didn’t see their daughter.
“Lizzy. Lizzy!” she called.
Jackie held her breath and listened. Nothing.
Chris immediately ran down the hall to the bedrooms, calling Lizzy’s name. Jackie searched the kitchen, dining room, and was about to follow Chris when she saw the closet door was ajar.
With her gun, she carefully pushed it open. The smell of blood assaulted her. Lizzy was curled on the floor, next to the vacuum, half hidden by coats that hung above her. Blood coated the walls. That bastard had shot her while she hid in the closet.
“No!” Jackie screamed.
She reached down, her hand shaking. But she had to check. She had to make sure.
Lizzy had a pulse. She was alive.
“Medics! We need paramedics, STAT! Lizzy, Lizzy, it’s Detective Regan. I’m going to help you. Wake up, honey.”
Chris came up behind her. “She’s alive?”
“Yes. She’s breathing. She has a pulse, but she won’t wake up. Deputy!” she called out. “Did you call a bus?”
“Two minutes out. They’d already been dispatched.”
There was so much blood for such a little girl. Jackie holstered her gun and picked Lizzy up, getting her out of the cramped closest. It was the only way she could put pressure on her stomach were the blood was coming from.
“Get me towels, anything. We have to stop the bleeding.”
The deputy found folded towels in the laundry room. Jackie applied pressure on Lizzy’s stomach where the buck shot had been focused. It was a mess, but she was breathing. If they could stop the bleeding and get her into surgery, if her lungs and heart were okay, they could save her. They had to. But they had to stop the bleeding!
The two minutes felt like hours, but the paramedics rushed in. “We got her, Detective,” one of them said.
Jackie stood up, her legs shaky. “I’m O-negative.”
“Great. We’re taking her to Mercy.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
She had to do something.
“I’m driving,” Chris said.
She didn’t argue.
They left before the ambulance and Chris raced to Mercy. Jackie could only think about one thing. Marla Becker was dead and Lizzy might not survive—and all she saw was Melissa and TJ in the same position. Her sister and nephew, dead at the hands of someone who was supposed to love and protect them.
They’re not dead. They’re alive, and they’re going to stay that way.
Mercy was the closest trauma ward to the Beckers’ house and Chris drove hot all the way there. He let her out at the emergency door. “The bus is only a minute or two behind,” he said. “I’ll meet you inside.”
A nurse rushed up to Jackie. “Where are you injured?”
“Not me,” she said. “I’m O-negative and we have a young victim coming in with a gunshot wound.” She pulled her donor card from her wallet and showed her badge and ID.
“We’re prepping for her,” the nurse said. “Right this way, Detective.”
Rick passed them as they walked down the hall. He was rushing for the emergency floor. “Jack?” his voice cracked.
“Not me,” she said and saw the tension leave Rick’s body. “It’s Lizzy Becker, she’s been shot.”
He nodded and continued toward the receiving area. A doctor was paged over the intercom to go to the emergency floor, gunshot victim en route.
The nurse prepped Jackie, then the phlebotomist came in and checked her blood pressure.
“You need to relax,” he said.
“A little girl’s life is at stake.”
“Your blood pressure is up. Take deep, cleansing breaths. When was the last time you donated?”
She donated at the Red Cross every other month, so there was no record here at the hospital. She’d donated five weeks ago, but he wouldn’t take her blood if he knew that.
“Two months ago. I donate six times a year.”
“A regular.”
“I’m O-negative. Look—I’m trying to calm down, but a little girl was shot.”
“Breathe, Detective.”
She complied. It took a couple minutes, but her blood pressure came down and he finally started drawing her blood.
Jackie closed her eyes and pictured Lizzy Becker. So much blood. How could that little girl survive when she lost that much blood?
She has to. She has to.
She felt the needle come out of her arm and opened her eyes, saying, “It’s only been ten minutes. You—” She stopped. Rick had replaced the phlebotomist. He taped her arm.
“I’m not done,” she said, her voice quivering. “You’re not mad because I didn’t wait two months, are you? I’m healthy. I—” Her voice caught when she saw his eyes. She could read him. “No. Lizzie was alive. I saw her. I felt her pulse. She was alive.”
“She lost too much blood. Her liver was severely damaged, one of her lungs had collapsed. They resuscitated her once in the ambulance, and Dr. Stone and I did everything we could.”
“I should have gone in immediately. We shouldn’t have waited! We should have found her earlier. Five minutes we fucked around, waiting for backup, checking—”
“She wouldn’t have survived. If she was shot here in the emergency room, I don’t think she would have survived.”
“No!” Jackie jumped up from the chair, and her knees gave out. Rick caught her.
“You just gave nearly a pint of blood, and you gave a month ago.”
“You can save her, Rick.”
“She’s gone, Jackie.”
Jackie didn’t want to—refused to—believe it. “I have to save her. I have to—”
Rick held her close. She tried to push him away, stumbled, but he didn’t let go.
Then tears came. Hot, hard, painful tears.
“No!” she screamed.
Rick didn’t let her go, even though she hit him. He grabbed her arms against his chest and held her tight.
She should have done something! She knew Carlo Becker was unstable. She might have guessed he would rather kill his family than go to prison. Why didn’t he just kill himself? Why kill his wife and daughter?
A sob escaped, the first sob that came after the tears, and her whole body sagged as if she had no bones. Rick picked her up and put her down on the hospital chair, still holding her.
Jackie couldn’t save Marla and Lizzy. She couldn’t save a little girl who had never done anything wrong in her life, who should have had a chance. A chance to survive, to live.
Gone. With the supreme selfish act of Lizzy’s father, the entire family was gone.
It could have been her, cowering in a closet, shot to death.
Twenty-five years ago, it could have been Jackie.
Chapter Seven
Even though her boss had told her to take the day off, Jackie went to work Tuesday. She just couldn’t sit at home.
She had to find a purpose today, to do something positive. Otherwise, she would go stir-crazy. Or get drunk at nine in the morning.
Chris was already at his desk. “Jackie,” he said, but didn’t say anything else. The sorrowful expression on his face said it all.
“Regan,” her boss, Lieutenant Frisk, called from his doorway. “My office.”
“Shit,” she mumbled as she got up from her desk.
She closed the door before Frisk told her to.
“You’re supposed to be home.”
“Sir, I need to work. You understand that.”
Frisk stared at her. “The last time you worked after something like this happened, you were suspended for excessive force. The next time you’ll be fired.”
“Nothing like this has happened before.”
“Exactly my point—two years ago a woman who wouldn’t take our help was paralyzed when her husband threw her off a three-story balcony. And you lost it three days later when you caught a guy roughing up his girlfriend. So, the murder of Lizzy Becker is going to hit you hard and you’re not going to know it until you hurt someone.”
“Nice that you have so much faith in me, sir.” She had her temper under control. She’d seen a goddamn shrink for two years to ensure it.
“The only way I’ll let you back on the job is if Doc Monroe clears you.”
“I did more than my year of anger management with her. Don’t make me go back.”
“You have an appointment at ten this morning. If you miss it, I’m putting you on administrative leave.”
“You set me up?” How’d he even know she’d come in?
“Regan, you’re a good cop. But I know your history, and I’m not going to let you fuck up your career. Dr. Monroe—or go home for two weeks. Those are your choices.”
“I see the shrink, I can work?”
“If Monroe says you won’t put a perp in the hospital or the morgue, you can come back. But it won’t be today, no matter what the doc says. Understood?”
“Yes,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Even if you are emotionally ready, physically you’re not—you can’t donate blood more than once every two months. You need to be physically fit and ready at all times, and frankly, you look like shit.”
“Who told on me?”
“You organize our fucking blood drive. I was there November 1st donating with you, or don’t you remember?”
She mumbled, “Sorry, sir.”
“Yeah, sure you are. Just go see the doc. I’ll call you later.”
#
Jackie had been forced into anger management sessions with Dr. Monroe before. She didn’t hate it—not like she thought she would have—but she didn’t like it, either. It felt like a waste of time. She’d learned how to channel her frustrations—that’s why her freezer was all dented up. But she’d had no choice. She loved her job more than she hated talking to some headshrinker about her problems.
Fortunately, Monroe knew everything about her. Jackie wouldn’t have to go through that bullshit of sharing. It had taken months before she told all about her shitty childhood. Some had been in her record—she was a cop, of course law enforcement would know that her father was in prison and why. But the rest? Jackie hated talking about it. But to keep her badge, she’d told Monroe everything—eventually.
“Detective,” Dr. Monroe said with a half-smile. She was the official shrink for both Sac Sheriffs and Sac PD. Her downtown office, a newly renovated high-rise, was two blocks east of the courthouse, and two blocks north of the Capitol. Monroe probably had a lot of business between all the politicians and cops and lawyers working in a four-block radius.
“Doc.”
Monroe motioned for her to sit. Jackie took the chair across from her desk. The doc was smart—every seat had a visual of the door. Maybe she only worked with cops, or maybe she rearranged her office when she had a cop client.
Her office reflected the doctor herself. Soothing, cool, comfortable. Color mostly in grays with touches of maroon and blue, with a lot of woodwork that edged toward practical over fussy.
“You know why I’m here.”
“You tell me.”
“Why play this game? I didn’t have a choice.” She stared at the thick gray sky. Buildings were obscured by the morning fog that hadn’t yet lifted. It might be one of those days where everyone felt like they were walking around in a dense mist that dampened sound, isolating individuals from the world around them.
Beautiful and depressing at the same time.
“I know Frisk made the appointment and I was asked to contact him if you missed it. I know a child died last night at the hands of her father and you took it personally.”
“They’re all personal, Doc.”
“I also know that you’re a decorated detective with a few dings on your record—and we both know why you have those dings. Let’s skip all that.”
“Thank God,” she muttered.
“Tell me about Lizzy.”
Monroe already knew everything, even Lizzy’s name. So why dance around the real issue? “What did I do wrong?” Jackie asked.
“You think you did something wrong?”
“Professionally? No. We can’t force people to do what’s good for them. But I knew—” Jackie took a deep breath.
“What did you know?”
“They don’t stop. Men like Carlo Becker don’t stop until their wife leaves them or their wife is dead. And he took his daughter for the ride. She was only six.”
“‘There, but for the grace of God, go I.’”
Jackie straightened. “What? What did you say?”
“It’s an expression. You’re blunt, so I’m going to be blunt. You saw yourself in Lizzy.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Doc raised an eyebrow. “A young girl caught between fighting parents. Her mother was abused like your mother. Her mother refused to leave like your mother.”
“I didn’t see me.” That was a bit of a lie. She had, for a brief moment, thought that she, too, could have been shot to death hiding in a closet. Under her bed. Long ago, in memories that still haunted her when she slept too deeply.
But there was a bigger truth, a more immediate truth. “I saw Missy.”
“Your sister?”
“Maybe—” She took a deep breath. “Maybe I saw both of us. But that doesn’t matter. I’m not a child. I’m not in an abusive relationship.”
“It matters.”
“Rick—you remember Rick, my boyfriend?”
Monroe nodded.
“He pointed out that my freezer is on its last leg because I hit and kick it when frustrated. I stared at those marks and he’s right. But better the freezer than Marla.”
“Marla?”
“Carlo.” She frowned.
“You said Marla.”
She’d slipped. She’d thought about it, but she’d never talked about it.
Yes, you did. You talked to Rick. And you haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
“I wanted to slap sense into her. And that makes me no better than Carlo. No better than my father. They just wanted to ‘slap sense’ into their wives, right?”
“Did you hit Marla Becker?”
“Of course not. I’ve never hit a victim.”
“But you don’t think of her as a victim.”
“Marla was abused by her husband. She was killed by her husband.”
“Yet you wanted to hit her. Why?”
“To make her leave! She was so close to walking away. I just needed more time... and now she’s dead.” She shook off the deep sorrow that had filled her since Rick told her Lizzy had died. “I would never have done it. I have more self-control than that. I just—sometimes—” She stopped. If she said what she was thinking, would she be fired?
“Sometimes what?”
“I want to drag them out of the house and force them to get help.”
“Yet…?”
Did she really want the truth? Could Jackie
even speak it?
“I know you can’t. It’s like an alcoholic. They have to want to quit. But Marla had a daughter! She should have protected her daughter. She didn’t care about herself. She wouldn’t let me help her, but she should have cared about Lizzy.”
“Like your mother should have protected you.”
“Me and my sister.”
“Yet, you’ve always protected Melissa, haven’t you?”
“Of course I did. I was older, it was my responsibility. We talked about this when I first came—you’re the oldest of four kids, you always were the protector, just like me. It doesn’t mean anything, just birth order.”
“I told you I was the oldest of four, but I didn’t say it didn’t mean anything. You said that.”
“What was I supposed to do? Let Melissa take the beatings? She was smaller than me. But I should have done something.”
“What?”
“Gone to my teacher. The police. Someone.”
“You were ten when your father was arrested.”
“So?”
“Do you think most children that age living in an abusive environment would trust any adult? You’re blaming yourself for not getting help. Yet, the first opportunity you had, you told the police.”
“Because they arrested my father. I knew he couldn’t hurt me anymore. I was safe.”
“Were you?”
“Your point?” This was why Jackie didn’t like shrinks. They couldn’t just speak plainly. Everything was a question.
“Once you had the power—when you spoke up, at ten—you never sat back down. It’s why you and Melissa were put into foster care during your mother’s second marriage.”
Jackie had forgotten she’d told the doc about that.
“You called that police officer who helped you when you were ten and he helped again, after your mother remarried, correct?”
“Yeah, so?”
“It’s natural for you to be angry with Marla Becker and women like her.”
“No. It’s not normal. They’re victims.”
“But she has a child. You saw her as not just a victim, but a perpetrator.”
Jackie shook her head. “No.” Her voice was a whisper. She didn’t know what to say, what she believed.
She expected Monroe to say something, to change direction, but the doc just sat there and looked at her with her cool, gray eyes that fit the decor.
Betrayed: Powerful Stories of Kick-Ass Crime Survivors Page 42