The Last Lies (Kate Murphy Mystery Book 1)

by C. C. Jameson

  Bigger tits or not, she had to change clothes and head home to please her husband.

  Just as she was about to exit the locker room, she saw Johnston standing there, halfway blocking the door, his eyes glued to his smartphone.

  “Have a good evening, Johnston,” she said as she turned sideways to squeeze by him.

  “Hey, Murphy. Did you hear?” he asked.

  Kate stopped and turned to face him, surprised that he even bothered to talk to her. “Hear what?”

  “Have a look,” he said before offering his phone.

  When Kate got a hold of it, Johnston pressed the play button to resume a video.

  A few seconds into what seemed like random footage of a park and people’s feet, Kate asked, “What am I looking at?”

  “Dead pigeons. Let me rewind it for you.”

  Kate frowned. “What? What dead pigeons?”

  “Not that I’d normally care about flying rats, but my son just sent me this video with dead pigeons he saw in McConnell Park. Weird shit, no? And who’s to say how many got dragged away by cats, dogs, and whatever?”

  “That’s strange,” Kate said, when she finally saw the part of the video that showed over a dozen pigeons lying on their sides. The positioning seemed random, as though the birds had fallen straight from the sky. Their legs stuck out like twigs from fat branches. Around them were breadcrumbs large enough to be visible on the shaky video.

  “Yep, Anyway… They’re pigeons. Guess they’re not that exciting. Especially when dead. What are you up to? Fun plans for the evening?”

  She raised her shoulders at the tall, husky blond man. Kate disliked small talk and preferred to keep her life private, especially since her colleagues didn’t seem to care for her or Larson, the other female cop in the district. But she didn’t want to sound impolite. “Nothing exciting. Heading home to cook dinner.”

  Johnston’s shoulders slumped, and his eyes darkened, as though clouds had rolled in. “Gotta do what it takes to keep your home life working, right? Have a good one,” he said before giving her a two-finger salute and leaving the entrance to walk toward his locker.

  “You, too. See you tomorrow,” Kate said.

  She headed out of the building toward her Subaru, all the while wondering what he meant by his home-life comment.

  As she unlocked her car door, she remembered: Johnston had lost an ugly custody battle a few months back and only got to see his son one weekend per month. That explained why he cared so much about the dumb video with dead pigeons. His son had sent it to him.

  Cops were not known for their happy personal lives. She and Matt had certainly felt the pressure.

  But the two of them had also shared adversities that very few people ever experienced. Kate had never met anyone else who understood what it was like to be orphaned. Her tragic childhood had forced her to develop a protective layer that no other man had managed to get through but Matt.

  Matt’s parents had died in a car accident. Drunk driver. With no older siblings or uncle to take him in, he had spent his teenage years being passed around from one foster home to another. That was just the destiny of most teenage orphan boys.

  While the story of his parents’ demise hadn’t been as gory as Kate’s, it had nonetheless left a scar on his soul. A scar so deep he was still going to therapy for it. Unfortunately, his therapist didn’t accept insurance, so it added more financial stress to their household, but Kate understood the importance of such sessions for Matt’s emotional well-being.

  The fact that they shared such dark pasts had to count for something, right? Even with his grumpy flare-ups and his angry spurts, he was the only person she’d ever fallen in love with. The only man who’d managed to make her feel special. The only one—except for her uncle—who cared for her and made her feel normal.

  But was their relationship strong enough to be the exception?

  Or was it too late already?

  Chapter Two

  At the crack of dawn, Kate woke with an urgent need to vomit. She didn’t bother to roll out of bed discreetly like she normally did; it would have been pointless considering the god-awful noise that echoed from the porcelain bowl seconds later.

  “Shit,” she muttered before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  That overly bubbly woman’s healthy concoction can’t still be in my system, can it? It’s ridiculous!

  Kate pushed herself up from the toilet and reached into the vanity where she kept her birth-control pills. She rotated the dial to today’s tiny colored tablet before another wave of nausea hit, forcing her to whirl toward the toilet. In doing so, she banged the container against the edge of the counter, breaking loose the plastic cover and spilling the contents all over the floor.

  “Shiiiiit…”

  Once her urge to vomit had passed, she stared down at the pills scattered across the tiles.

  Do I really want to pick these up and put them in my mouth later?

  With the hours she’d been working lately, she had very little time to clean the apartment. Last time she’d mopped the floor would have been, what, two, three months ago? And Matt’s urine always seemed to spray well past the toilet bowl.

  I’ll stop by the pharmacy and get new pills.

  Another unplanned cost that would hurt her tiny budget. No way she’d take one of those dirty ones right now. She’d just have to take a double dose tomorrow morning. Thankfully, or not, sex had become an infrequent pastime, so the risk of getting pregnant from missing a single pill was likely nil.

  “Are you okay?” Matt asked, his voice rough from the vestiges of sleep.

  “Just puking my guts out,” she grumbled, too low for him to hear. Then she spoke up to ease her husband’s concerns, “I’m good. Sorry for the noise. Must be food poisoning or something.”

  “One more thing,” Sergeant Bailey said near the end of his morning brief. “You may or may not have heard about this on TV or online, but there’ve been a few reports about dead pigeons and squirrels—”

  “Who cares about those?” Bower heckled.

  Kate caught Johnston’s eye, and he shrugged. He appeared as surprised to hear this now as Kate was. He must not have been the one to mention it to their supervisor.

  The sergeant exhaled loudly. “I know, Bower.”

  The room rumbled with annoyed grumbles and groans.

  “Calm down, guys!” yelled the sergeant. “I get it. We’ve all got more important things to do—”

  “Much more fucking important things, I’d say,” Bower interjected.

  “I know. Quiet, Bower. But the mayor cares, so we have to care. Or at least pretend to.”

  Another tremor of groans rumbled through the space as everyone around Kate shook their heads.

  She did too after a few seconds.

  After all, she understood how they all felt. Who cared about a few dead animals? She certainly didn’t want them dead, but she’d joined the force to help people and to solve crimes. To restore justice and to put bad guys behind bars. Guys like those who’d murdered her family. She didn’t join to protect the local wildlife—or pest, depending on how one saw pigeons and squirrels. Animals fell within other people’s responsibilities, not the BPD’s.

  “I’m officially mentioning it here during my brief, so I can tell the district commander who will report back to the mayor and say that we’ll all be on the lookout for any weirdo going around doing target practice on small animals… or poisoning them or whatever. The mayor doesn’t want PETA, Greenpeace, or whatever animal-loving, tree-hugging organization talking shit about Boston, so that’s his plan. Getting us involved.”

  Another wave of swear words, insults directed at the mayor, and other non-productive comments filled the room.

  But Kate kept quiet.

  As much as she wanted to fit in with the guys, she’d never been one to randomly insult people or disobey orders.

  If that’s what the mayor wants…

  “Okay, enough!” yelled the se
rgeant. “What are you all still doing here? Get on with your duties, guys. Stay safe and keep your eyes open.”

  After an uneventful shift, while feeling a little freedom in her schedule since she hadn’t received a special meal request from her husband today, Kate stopped by the drugstore to refill her prescription.

  She mentally reviewed her upcoming bills and verified her checking account balance on her phone, and then she stepped into the store, happy to know she had enough to cover this unexpected expense without the risk of overdrafting or her card being rejected. A recent memory of that surfaced briefly.

  Yeah… That was pretty embarrassing.

  “Could you give me another three months’ worth?” she asked the scrawny mustachioed pharmacist. “Can’t believe I broke my last one this morning.”

  “You broke it?” he asked, his face scrunched up. “What do you mean?”

  “I banged it, and it fell apart. My pills scattered everywhere.”

  He tilted his head slightly. “That’s odd.”

  “Odd?” she repeated. “Goes with my unlucky streak, I guess.”

  The middle-aged man shrugged. “If you say so. Anything else?”

  Kate shook her head, paid for her pills, and then walked out, puzzled. Before her mind started its downward spiral into random what-if theories, her gut churned, giving her a heads-up that she needed to find somewhere convenient to puke, and quick. She didn’t have many options, so she settled on a young, sick-looking oak tree on the edge of the sidewalk.

  Mostly clear liquid left Kate’s throat and splattered on the dirt. Once she was certain her gut was done expelling its contents, she let go of the tree she’d recently nourished with her home-grown fertilizer, and then walked back to her car.

  She had to make it home before Matt, so she could start preparing dinner for him and avoid getting into trouble.

  Chapter Three

  After yet another sleepless night, Kate knew she had to top up her coffee mug to last the day. But Starbucks was definitely out of her budget.

  So, coffee from the break room it was.

  Free. Potent. Effective. Perfect for her current needs and financial constraints.

  But when she walked in the room, she overheard Bower chatting with Andrews, one of their regular dispatchers. Ignoring the detailed and explicit description of his encounter with a large-breasted, blonde chick the previous night, Kate headed to the machine and filled her stainless-steel travel mug.

  Why do men need to be so graphic about sex when they talk to each other?

  There was enough of that in their mixed locker room, but now she had to overhear it in the break room as well?

  She’d never been one to whine and bitch about feminism and stuff, but was human decency and respect for people’s bodies too much to ask for in the workplace?

  As though Bower had read her mind, he spoke louder, making Kate even more uncomfortable.

  But Andrews seemed a little more decent than Bower.

  “You should probably tone it down a bit,” he said, nudging him with an elbow and nodding toward Kate.

  “Pff. That’s just Murphy. I’m not going to shut up on her behalf. She tried to create more work for me the other day. Hey, Murphy, you know that favor you owe me? I have an idea for how you can pay me back…”

  Kate thought she knew where he was going with that and wasn’t interested, not even a little. She didn’t take the bait, and as soon as her travel mug was full, she hurried out of the break room.

  Best get back to work if I want to impress my supervisor and make a difference in this world, however small it may be.

  Every Bostonian had forgotten how to drive—that was the only logical reason for fifteen accidents in the C-11 district alone. Exhausted, Kate returned her patrol car to the parking lot and was about to hit the locker room when the shift supervisor called after her.

  “Murphy. Get in here.”

  Kate obeyed, wondering what she’d done wrong.

  “Results from the detective’s exam are in,” he said as he stepped behind his desk and pointed to the chair in front of it for Kate to sit in.

  “So?” she asked excitedly.

  As soon as she sat down, a faint aroma of fish reached her nostrils. She swallowed her bile and made an effort to breathe through her mouth.

  The supervisor read from a manila folder as he went on with his feedback. “You did well on the exam. Heck, you aced it. You beat the best score in the district, but… no, you’re not ready. They didn’t recommend you based on your file.”

  “What do you mean? You said it yourself. I aced the exam…”

  “You’re still young. Not mature enough. You need more experience under your belt, among other things.”

  What other things?

  She took in a deep breath, mostly to absorb the somber news, but her inhalation included more fishiness than her stomach could stand.

  “Excuse me,” she said, rushing out of the office toward the bathroom. She couldn’t make it all the way to the toilet; she tossed her cookies in the trashcan by the door. As soon as she was done, she splashed her face with cold water, swished out her mouth, and then left the bathroom.

  Her supervisor was waiting right by the door as she exited.

  Shit, he probably heard me puke.

  “Murphy, what’s going on?” he asked.

  Kate shook her head, feeling heat rush to her cheeks. “I must have had a bad egg salad at lunch,” she lied.

  He eyed her up and down. “Is that so?” He squinted at her, arching an eyebrow.

  Kate raised her shoulders. “Don’t know. What else could it be?”

  The sergeant shook his head, his lips pressed together. “And by the way, you may want to keep your thoughts to yourself.”

  “What do you mean, Sergeant?”

  “Some of your shift mates were talking about you. Just so you know, nobody needs your advice on how to run things. Especially those who’ve been here for a decade longer than you. If you want to stand a chance at becoming a detective, I recommend minding your own business.”

  Kate squeezed her fists and tightened her jaw before nodding and walking away, resisting the urge to find out who’d said such things.

  No point. It was probably Bower.

  Kate returned to the locker room, packed her weapon in her portable locker box, took off her uniform shirt, and then headed home still wearing her boots, T-shirt, and work pants. Due to Matt’s hatred toward firearms, she didn’t normally take her weapons back to the apartment, but with an early-morning court appearance scheduled for tomorrow, it was much easier that way. Matt was just going to have to suck it up.

  But her worries about being pregnant had taken over her life. Or at least all of her mental bandwidth.

  This has to stop.

  I have to find out for real.

  I can’t risk puking in front of the sergeant again.

  With her weapon safely locked in the trunk of her Subaru, she stopped at Walmart on her way home to pick up a pregnancy test.

  Kate walked into the store, found her way to the pharmacy section, and then stared at the selection.

  Why are there so many brands? Are the pricier kits more accurate than the others? Nah. The cheaper ones should still work.

  After two minutes of scanning and comparing, she settled on the pink box that included two sticks. It was on sale for $8.49. She figured she’d skip lunch once this week or ‘forget’ that Matt didn’t like the no-name brand for a few items on their grocery list and that should make up for the extra expense in her budget. She bought the test and headed out of the busy store and back into her car.

  Sitting at a red light twenty minutes away from her apartment, Kate realized she couldn’t bring the pregnancy test home. There was no way she could deal with the results should they somehow—magically and inexplicably—be positive. And Kate was even less ready to talk about it with Matt. The kid issue had been settled a while back. When they’d first met, during one of their earlier date
s, he’d mentioned that he wanted kids; she’d replied that she liked her career. They’d settled for ‘Maybe later.’ And that had been the end of the discussion. In two years of dating and nearly two more of married life, the subject had never resurfaced.

  She pulled into a McDonald’s lot and parked her car, breathing deep for courage. Then she grabbed the plastic bag containing the pregnancy test and made for the ladies’ room. Inside the least gross of the two stalls, she opened the box and pulled out the roadmap-sized instruction pamphlet.

  Several pages worth of legalese had been included along with the instructions. Kate skimmed her way through the sub-titles until she found the important part: wait five minutes.

  Who wrote all this crap?

  Seriously, all they needed to write was this:

  1- pee on the stick; and

  2- wait five minutes while praying to the deity of your choice or making a pact with the devil.

  She only had enough pee in her for one shot, so she grabbed both sticks then set the box and its instructions aside. Armed with the two plastic widgets and a semi-full bladder, Kate closed her eyes and let her hopes go down the toilet bowl along with her afternoon coffee.

  Never did five minutes last so long.

  Sitting in a public bathroom certainly didn’t help either since it involved having her door banged on every thirty seconds or so by some impatient junk-food fanatic.

  “Occupied!” Kate said for the umpteenth time.

  The knocking was a good distraction, though. She didn’t want to think about what she’d do if the tests gave her a positive result.

  Or what if one stick turns out to be positive and the other negative? That’d involve spending more money on another test. Shit.

  Mom and Dad, if you’re up there looking at me now, please make those results—both of them—negative.

  Kate shook her head.

  Wishing for her dead parents to help her had never worked, but who knew? She needed all the help she could get.