He called his father and told him about the cold case hobby group and asked his dad again why he wouldn’t talk to the police or take a lie detector test. It had been a while since Jack had brought it up and he never got a satisfactory answer from his father.
‘Ever watch a police show, Jack?’ his father said over the phone. ‘They always pin the murder on the husband or the boyfriend; it’s classic cop noir. I’m not going to put myself in a compromising position. I didn’t touch your mother, and I don’t want the cops to railroad me. It’s that simple.’
‘But you could at least talk to them,’ Jack said. ‘It might help find Mom’s killer.’
‘Don’t you get it?’ his father replied. ‘The dumbass po-po doesn’t have a clue about who killed your mother. If they knew anything, they’d arrest somebody. They want to pin it on me so they can close their case. I’m not that stupid, and I’m not gonna play.’
‘But maybe you know something that would help, Dad,’ Jack urged.
‘Are you listening to me?’ Alec said, getting angry. ‘Those cops have been out to get me from day one. I’m not going to help them hang me. And, don’t talk to those half-assed would-be private eyes, either. They sound like a bunch of pathetic losers with nothing better to do than get into other people’s business. Stay away from them, is that clear?’
Jack was silent.
‘Jack,’ shouted his father over the phone. ‘Did you hear what I said? Stay the fuck away from them.’
‘Yeah, I heard you,’ his son said, barely audible.
The next morning Jack called Tom Franken and said he’d meet with him and his group. They asked him a lot of questions about his father. Some he had the answers to, some he didn’t.
Months later, Jack checked in with Franken to see if he had made any headway. Franken only uncovered what they already knew, no new information. It was a bust.
‘I’m afraid we’ve hit a wall,’ said Franken. ‘Don’t know how much further we can go. I hate to tell you this, but circumstantially, your father looks like the most likely suspect.’
Tell me something I don’t already know, thought Jack as he hung up the phone.
Part VIII
MY SWAN SONG
Chapter 89
It was a Sunday night, and Alec had been drinking since lunchtime. He started with beer and then switched to bourbon around four o’clock. When he got drunk, he became demanding, obstinate and nasty. Melissa steered clear of him to avoid getting caught in his crossfire. He hadn’t been like this at all when they first met. After almost three years of marriage, he had changed a lot and not for the better.
Later that night, she lay next to him in bed unable to move. Tears ran from the corner of her eyes into her ears. Her husband had just raped her.
He had been snarky and belligerent all day. By nine o’clock that night, he was inebriated and grabbed her and pulled her to the bed.
‘Leave me alone, Alec,’ Melissa said, pushing him away. ‘Let go of me.’
She tried to get away from him, but his grip was firm, he was much stronger than she was. He pulled her down onto the bed and forced himself on her. She screamed as he climbed on top of her. He put one hand over her mouth and the other around her neck and started to squeeze. She couldn’t breathe and believed he was going to kill her so she let him do what he wanted so it would be over faster.
When he was done, she heard him panting next to her. Without looking over, she knew he had that self-satisfied expression on his face. She had seen it a thousand times. She wondered what all his precious students would say if they knew the esteemed Dr. Roberts had just assaulted his wife. He would rationalize that a husband can’t rape his wife, but she knew what he’d done He had raped her.
She heard him pour himself another glass of bourbon from the bottle on the nightstand on his side of the bed. He was babbling about how great he was, but she wasn’t listening, still lost in the trauma and violence of what had just happened. He was drunk and slurring his words. He reached for her, and she cringed when his hand touched her arm.
‘Gimme a kiss,’ he said as he pulled her towards him and grabbed at her breast. She pushed him away. He turned to pick up his drink on the nightstand, and she jumped off the bed and moved across the room.
‘Don’t ever touch me again,’ she screamed and ran into the bathroom and locked the door. She could hear him shouting, saying how ungrateful she was, that she was a bitch and a whore and a whole lot worse than that. She didn’t want to hear him so she turned on the radio in the bathroom as loud as it would go to drown him out.
Chapter 90
‘You don’t have to be such a bitch, Melissa,’ Alec shouted at the closed bathroom door. ‘You’re only a goddamned Pilates instructor. I’m the one with all the fucking degrees. They call me doctor. You’re nothing.’
He could hear her radio playing through the bathroom door. Who the hell does she think she is, he thought. She’s a nobody. If I want to have sex with my wife, I damn well will. Fuck her and all women. They’re all whores, anyway.
He poured himself more bourbon and looked at the bottle. He had almost finished the entire thing. What the hell, he thought, might as well have it all. He emptied the rest into his glass.
‘If you won’t talk to me,’ Alec yelled at the closed bathroom door, ‘I’ll fucking talk to myself, then. Better company, anyway. I don’t need you, Melissa. I got options. You hear me?’
He took another swig of his drink. He could barely feel his body, it was numb from all the booze. It felt nice.
‘There are loads of women who want to be with me,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve got dozens of women who would go out with me in a heartbeat. You think I need you?’ he screamed. ‘You’re nothing but dead weight around my neck. From now on, when I say jump, you ask how high. You hear me, Melissa?’
Chapter 91
Melissa put some towels in the bathtub and laid down in there while she waited for her husband to pass out. She stayed in the locked bathroom for over an hour. She could still hear him shouting and muttering, but with the noise from the radio couldn’t make out what he was saying.
After about an hour, there was quiet in the other room. Melissa waited another twenty minutes to be sure he was asleep before she crept out of the bathroom. The lights were still on in the bedroom. Her husband was passed out on the bed with the bourbon bottle lying next to him. What a pretty picture, she thought. She considered taking a photo and posting it online but decided she didn’t need any more trouble. Alec could be vindictive.
She went to sleep in the guest room, as she had done any times before. Thankfully, her husband was going on a business trip to Atlanta in the morning. She decided to leave the house before he woke up to avoid having to see him. She needed time to think. She needed an escape plan.
When the alarm went off at six thirty that Monday morning, Alec thought his head was going to explode. He felt like crap and asked himself why he had drunk so much the night before when he knew he had to get on a plane to Atlanta. He stumbled to the bathroom searching for aspirin and his toothbrush. His teeth felt like they had hair on them. Melissa was already up and gone. Odd, he thought, his wife was never up this early. He looked at his face in the mirror. He felt like shit and looked even worse.
Twenty minutes later, the aspirin started to kick in. Random images flashed through his mind. Did he and his wife have sex the night before? He couldn’t remember. He had a vague memory that maybe they did and that she had given him a hard time. He couldn’t think about her now. He’d deal with his wife and her nonsense when he got back from Atlanta.
He showered, packed his things, took a few more aspirin and drank a full quart of water. Before he walked out the back door, he wrote Melissa a note and left it on the refrigerator.
Chapter 92
Alec had to leave for the airport at nine. Melissa deliberately left the house at six thirty and went to her Pilates studio before he woke. She didn’t want to see him that day and wasn’t sure if she ever
wanted to see him again. He’d be gone for three nights, and she needed the time and space to sort things out. It couldn’t continue like this.
When she went back to her house a few hours later, she quietly opened the back door, for fear that he might still be there. He wasn’t. Tears ran from her eyes as she got into the shower and let the hot water run over her head and body for almost an hour. No amount of soap and water was going to make her situation better. Her husband was a bully and he had hurt her more than once. She knew now that he wasn’t going to stop, and it was getting worse.
After what had happened the night before, the feeling of anything touching her body was unbearable. She put on the loosest fitting clothes she could find and went into the kitchen to make some herbal tea. That was when she saw the handwritten note pinned by a red ladybug magnet to the refrigerator.
Be back on Thursday around 6. Clean the fucking house. It’s a sty.
A.
She stared at it for a moment, numb. It was the dismissiveness of the message that got to her. Alec had treated her like a piece of garbage the night before and then left her a note as if she was the hired help. All the rage that had been bottled up from the night came pouring out, and she knew what she was going to do.
Chapter 93
He didn’t know why but McQuillan’s ears were itchy all day. His usually reliable inner alarm was warning him to pay attention to something he might otherwise overlook but he hadn’t figured out what that was.
He was at his desk about to bite into a corned beef on rye with extra Russian when a call came in from the front desk sergeant.
‘McQ, there’s a woman out here who says she’s been raped,’ said the officer.
‘What are you calling me for?’ McQuillan asked. ‘I’m homicide. Call Janine Nash in special victims.’
‘The lady is asking for you by name,’ the officer said. ‘She said she only wanted to speak to Detective McQuillan. She’s pretty banged up, got discoloration on one of her cheeks, and she’s highly agitated. Says her name is Melissa Roberts.’
Melissa Roberts? Holy shit, thought McQuillan, that’s Alec Roberts’ second wife. He called Detective Nash and gave her a one-minute rundown on the woman they were both about to meet and asked her to follow his lead and trust him.
There had been nothing new on the Roberts case in years, it was bone dry. The only new thing was that Alec Roberts got remarried to a Melissa D’Souza now, Melissa Roberts, a former student, and part-time Pilates instructor. The wedding happened after the case was moved off the active list to cold case. McQuillan had never met wife number two in person.
Melissa Roberts was pacing nervously in conference room C when McQuillan walked in. Immediately he noticed how much she looked like the first Mrs. Roberts. Like Quinn. Long dark hair, sparkly blue eyes, pale skin, petite. Even though the investigation had moved to cold case, McQuillan still had Quinn Roberts’ picture on his desk. When he was actively working on her investigation, she had come alive for him, the beautiful woman with the dancing blue eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to put that picture away. Every morning he looked into her eyes and promised her he hadn’t forgotten.
McQuillan’s attachment to a victim had happened to him before. It was a strange phenomenon for cops who worked homicide. If the vic was a scumbag, you did what you had to do because it was your job. But, if the vic was a good person, someone who had a family, someone people cared about, you sort of fell in love with them a little. Quinn Roberts had become a part of McQuillan’s life, and a tiny piece of him had fallen in love with her. Even though she was in cold case and nothing new had happened, he was always on the lookout for that break. It would come one day. Sometimes it took forty years, but it almost always happened if you waited and were lucky enough to live that long. His red vibrating ears told him the wait might be over.
Janine Nash and McQuillan sat across the table from Melissa Roberts. Ms. Roberts was visibly upset, and her cheek was turning purple.
‘Ms. Roberts, this is Detective Nash from the Special Victims Unit, and I’m Detective McQuillan.’
Melissa’s left hand was in her mouth as she unconsciously bit her thumbnail. Her eyes were red and filled with tears She was barely holding it together. In addition to the small bruise he could see on her face, he noticed a couple of other discolorations on both of her wrists and forearms.
‘Front desk said you’ve been attacked,’ McQuillan said gently. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’
‘Last night,’ she said softly while holding back tears, ‘my husband, Alec Roberts, raped me.’
That arrogant little prick was at it again, thought McQuillan. This might be the break he’d been waiting for. Melissa Roberts had McQuillan’s full attention.
Melissa reached into her pocket, pulled out a piece of paper and laid it on the table.
‘This was the note he left for me this morning before he went on a business trip,’ she said starting to cry.
The two detectives read the note.
Detective Nash handed Melissa a bottle of water and a box of tissues.
‘Melissa, we’re going to be with you every step of the way, okay?’ she said.
Melissa nodded and chewed on her thumbnail.
‘Would you start at the beginning?’ McQuillan said calmly, trying to hide his excitement.
‘Alec says that a husband has a right to have sex with his wife whenever he wants,’ she continued, ‘even if she doesn’t want to. But I don’t think because you’re married, it means you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Don’t I have rights, too?’
‘Of course, you have rights and no,’ McQuillan said, ‘being married doesn’t give anyone the right to do whatever they want. Rape is rape.’
Melissa swallowed and nodded her head.
‘Last night, he was drunk again,’ she said. ‘I told him to leave me alone, and he told me to shut up, that he could do whatever he wanted. I screamed for him to stop. I tried to get away but he held me down and put his hand over my nose and mouth, and then he choked me. I thought he was going to kill me. I couldn’t breathe. After a while, I stopped fighting, there was no point. He’s much stronger than me, and I just wanted it to be over, so I let him do what he wanted. When he rolled over, I got up and locked myself in the bathroom.’
‘Ms. Roberts, has your husband done this before?’ Detective Nash asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want to press charges?’ McQuillan asked. ‘Legally, you would be within your rights. What he did, it’s not okay.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘What would pressing charges mean? Would Alec be arrested?’
‘That depends,’ McQuillan said. ‘Where is your husband right now?’
‘He went to Atlanta this morning for work. He’ll be gone for three days.’
‘Do you have another place to go?’ Detective Nash asked.
‘No.’
‘We can help you with that,’ said Detective Nash. ‘We’ve got temporary housing for this kind of situation. I can make the arrangements for you.’
The two detectives spent the next half hour collecting details from Melissa Roberts. Clearly, thought McQuillan, Alec Roberts still got his jollies from beating up defenseless women.
Detective Nash took Melissa Roberts to another room to get photos of the bruises and abrasions while McQuillan filled out the required paperwork to open the rape and assault case.
With Alec Roberts out of town until Thursday, the plan was for Melissa to go home tonight and pack her things. Tomorrow, Detectives Nash and McQuillan would take her to a safe house until they could sort things out.
‘Ms. Roberts,’ McQuillan said, ‘we’ll give you a lift home tonight to make sure the house is vacant. I’d also like to get a look at the room where the attack happened, take some pictures and collect whatever evidence there might be. Are you okay with that?’
Melissa nodded.
Chapter 94
Half an hour later, the three of them walked into
the dark house and Melissa turned on the lights in the living room. The house was messy with papers piled everywhere. McQuillan took out his camera and took some pictures. He needed to play this legit. He was here to get the goods on a rape but hoped he might find something that might open a crack in the Quinn Roberts murder case. As long as Melissa Roberts had willingly let him into the house, he was going to take full advantage and take his shot. He’d look around for as long as she’d let him, knowing he’d never have another chance at the inside of Alec Roberts’ house again. This was his moment. It was show time.
Melissa led the two detectives upstairs to her bedroom. An empty bottle of bourbon lay its side on the nightstand. Nice, thought McQuillan.
‘This is where it happened,’ Melissa said with no emotion in her voice. ‘He raped me on that bed and then I ran into the bathroom over there and locked the door.’
McQuillan and Nash made a few notes, bagged all the sheets and blankets as well as grabbing a few pieces of paper along with the bourbon bottle. McQuillan took photos of the bedroom and bathroom from every angle.
‘Mind if I look around your house?’ McQuillan asked.
‘Do whatever you need to do,’ Melissa said. ‘Is there something, in particular, you’re looking for?’
‘I don’t know exactly,’ McQuillan said. ‘I’ll know it when I see it. In a case like this, it could turn into a he-said-she-said. I need something concrete to make sure we nail him.’
‘If I file the complaint, he might not go to jail?’ she asked, starting to tear up. ‘If he doesn’t go to jail, he’ll come after me. You don’t know him.’
But I do, thought McQuillan, I know him very well.
I Am Quinn Page 23