Saving Ferris

by A R Kennedy

  “I’ll tell you what you should be thinking about, Briscoe.” Owens looked back at the interrogation room. Jeremiah was slowly writing on the legal pad. “Briscoe is going to be furious.”

  As Holden parked his car, he reminded himself he shouldn’t be here. He got out of the car, took a quick glimpse around to ensure he was alone, and hopped the fence.

  He flipped his headlamp on and slinked through the yard to the patio.

  Ferris was waiting at the door when he tapped on the glass. Cecilia handed him a Mountain Dew when she opened the door. He wondered if she had been waiting for him too.

  “It’s hard work being that stealth,” she said.

  He nodded agreement and took a sip of the soda. He froze as he was slipping his backpack off when she reached for him. For his cheek, for his lips, he didn’t know. Instead, she reached toward his forehead and flipped the headlamp off. “You don’t have to be stealth in here.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he agreed and removed the headlamp. He put it in the backpack and pulled out a bag of Doritos.

  “Doritos?” she asked.

  “I thought hackers liked snacks like this.”

  “One, I’m not a hacker. I am a computer genius. Two, I don’t even think that is a stereotype anyone has. All that cheesy stuff would get on my computer.” Before he could fear she was really angry, she smiled. “Should I have donuts here for your next visit?”

  Relieved she wasn’t mad, and that she expected another visit, Holden sat on his usual stool. Ferris sat next to him. Holden rubbed behind his ears and Ferris leaned into his leg.

  “You’d think you didn’t get any attention all day,” Cecilia told Ferris. “Between me and the defense team, someone is always petting him, or throwing a toy for him, or giving him a treat.” Ferris barked at the word “treat.”

  Holden got up and reached for the biscuit jar. Ferris sat, his tail brushing against a stool, as Holden gave him the treat. “He’s got you trained well,” Cecilia commented.

  The ding on an incoming email came from the office. Cecilia got up to check. “Looks like someone has you trained too,” he said.

  She smirked at him and he followed her into the office. He’d been in here before, the night of the attack, but he hadn’t noticed the framed photos on the desk. He looked at them. Cecilia and Joey. Jeremiah and his wife.

  “That’s my in-laws,” she said.

  “I’m surprised you keep their photos.”

  She’d kept everything the way Joey had left it.

  “They look nice, don’t they?” she asked. They did but they both knew they weren’t. Holden stared at Jeremiah and wondered how someone could be that greedy. A career in law enforcement should have parted him from his naivety by now.

  She caught him staring at the wedding photo. “You know Brittany?”

  “No,” he answered, thankful she hadn’t asked about Jeremiah.

  He couldn’t tell her about Jeremiah. It wouldn’t help her cause. It would only cause her more pain.

  “I tried reaching out to Brittany a few times after her father died. That’s what I thought I should do. I thought I could help. I know it’s hard to lose a parent.” She looked at Holden to confirm. “But she wanted nothing to do with me. Never even returned the calls, emails, cards.”

  “Joey doesn’t have any other siblings?”

  “No. Just Brittany.” She stared at their wedding photo. “Joey said they liked me. They seemed happy with me when Joey first brought me around. I could fix their computers or set up their televisions or WiFi.” She looked up at Holden and shrugged. “Now, they’d get rid of me if they could.”

  She didn’t know how true that was.

  CHAPTER 32

  “What are you doing here?” Owens asked, when he pulled into his parking spot at the station.

  Briscoe was illegally parked in the fire zone, next to his spot. Owens fought the urge to give him a ticket. He got out of his car and headed into the station.

  “We need to keep this quiet,” Briscoe demanded.

  “And what is ‘this’?” Owens asked.

  “You know darn well what this is.” He leaned in and whispered, “Coleman.”

  Owens had no idea how he could have found out so soon. He thought he’d at least have the morning to figure out a plan. To deal with Coleman and Briscoe.

  “You arrested him. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Briscoe asked.

  “I didn’t arrest him.” Because I didn’t know what to charge him with, Owens didn’t add. “We only took his statement.”

  “Don’t arrest him,” Briscoe ordered.

  “Don’t?” Owens asked.

  A pair of officers walked past. Owens waved a greeting. Briscoe waited to answer until they were out of earshot.

  “You heard me!” he shouted. Briscoe held his tongue until another officer walked past. He lowered his voice before adding, “I don’t want the media finding out about Coleman.”

  “They’re going to find out about him. You know that,” Owens said. He paused, waiting for Briscoe to argue. He didn’t, so he continued. “We have to do something with him. What he did was wrong. It’s a crime.”

  More people were coming and going from the station. Briscoe took Owens by the elbow and directed him to the front of his car, far enough away from prying ears. Owens stood still and glared at him.

  “I know that,” Briscoe admitted. His conciliatory statement prompted Owens to move out of bystanders’ earshot. “Just not yet. Bury it for a while. Misfile the paperwork. Wait until the trial is over and we’ll do something. Maybe the media won’t find out. If they do, we’ll say small town station overwhelmed with all the press in town.”

  Owens didn’t like his continual use of “we.” Coleman was not their problem. He was Briscoe’s problem. “How about I write the headline? How about small town prosecutor realizing he shouldn’t have arrested a woman for protecting herself?”

  “I’m not having this argument with you again.”

  Owens stepped toward Briscoe and looked down at him. “And now he’s too scared to back down.”

  Briscoe had never won a physical fight in his life. Not even to his younger brother. He knew he would never win one against the police chief. Plus, an altercation between the prosecutor and police chief would make any town’s paper.

  “Owens, calm down.” Briscoe stepped back and leaned against the car. “I don’t want Sewell finding out about this.”

  Owens stepped back as well and leaned against the building. “Don’t you have to tell the defense?”

  “I have to tell them about anything related to this crime,” Briscoe conceded.

  “And you don’t think this is?” Owens asked.

  Briscoe shook his head and answered, “No,” without hesitation.

  Owens threw his hands in the air. “It’s the reason Gabbert was there.”

  Briscoe motioned for him to calm down. “It doesn’t matter why he was there,” he explained. Owens shook his head and headed into work before Briscoe continued, “She killed him. It’s a murder trial. That’s all the jury needs to know.” He got back in his car. “And get the autopsy report. Today!” he shouted as he drove away.

  Chief Holden Owens walked into the morgue. “I’m here for the paperwork on Gabbert, Robert.” The young man at the front desk looked up with a blank look on his face. It had been a trying twenty-four hours, except for his short visit with Cecilia. He wanted to retrieve the file quickly and drop it off at Marcy’s desk. “The shooting victim,” he clarified.

  “Oh, the young dude.” The clerk squinted and tapped a few keys on his computer. “Doc cut him up yesterday.”

  “Yes, I know,” Owens responded. His patience was waning. “Can you get me the paperwork please?”

  He made a phone call and a few moments later a woman in green scrubs and a white lab coat came out.

  “I’m Dr. Landry,” she introduced herself. She held her hand out to shake his hand. Owens hesitated, knowing where that hand had be
en. “I performed the Gabbert autopsy.”

  “Chief Owens,” he said, holding out his hand. He tried not to cringe when he shook her ice-cold hand.

  “Sorry it took so long. I couldn’t get here before this.” She should be apologizing to the Gabbert family not him, Owens thought, for delaying the funeral. “Follow me,” she said before turning to go back where she had come from.

  When she turned, he squirted some hand sanitizer from the bottle on the desk and scrubbed his hands furiously. “Why?” he called out. “I just need the report.”

  Dr. Landry turned and looked at him. He was still rubbing the hand sanitizer in. “You do know I wash my hands after an autopsy, right?”

  “Of course…” he answered.

  She continued before he could feign an excuse for the sanitizer. “Usually the detective in charge wants a full explanation. I like to do that over the body.”

  With the hand sanitizer worked in, he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He crossed them over his chest. “I’m the chief of police, not a detective.” He told her again, “I just need the report.”

  “Well, send the detective over and we’ll go through my findings.”

  “There is no detective assigned,” Holden explained. “We already arrested the shooter.”

  She removed her glasses and looked at him closely. “I think you would find it helpful. Are you sure you don’t want to go over the body with me?”

  “I do not.” Owens had seen Gabbert enough times in life, always in a bad situation. He didn’t need to add dead on a slab to the list.

  “Oh, I’d like to know,” Pugliese announced as he entered.

  “What are you doing here, Pugliese?” Owens asked. He checked his watch. He wasn’t on duty yet.

  “I’m dating a nurse. I came to see her before my shift. I heard you were down here with the dead doc.”

  “Forensic pathologist,” Dr. Landry corrected him.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Pugliese grabbed some gloves from a box and put them on, snapping them at the wrists “Can we go back now?”

  Glad to have someone to go over the body with, Dr. Landry went through the door. “Okay, follow me.”

  She handed Owens a pair of gloves and each of them a mask. They put them on. Owens was glad the mask would cover Pugliese’s smile and his own disgust.

  She pulled open one of the silver compartments and pulled out Robert Gabbert’s dead body.

  “Eighteen-year-old man. Manner of death: shot to the head.” She pointed to the gunshot wound as if they needed direction. “No other abnormalities. I’m still waiting for the toxicology screen. That’ll take a week or two. I doubt that will affect your case.”

  Briscoe stared at the dead body. Other than the autopsy incisions, and the body being naked, Gabbert looked no different than he did when Owens had arrived on the scene in Cecilia’s back yard. He had no idea why Dr. Landry forced them to come back into the lab. He only needed the file and he was still waiting for that.

  Dr. Landry looked up from the corpse. “That was some shot. You have a marksman on your hands.”

  Owens shook his head. “Not even close.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Cecilia claimed JJ’s, and Joey’s, office as her own. It was her refuge while the defense team worked. Her old desk sat barren in the corner. She considered removing it from the house. As she waited for Clayton’s arrival, she noted the large antique mahogany desk otherwise remained the same. The only difference was her laptop now lay on it.

  Ferris adjusted to the change and sat at her feet, same as he always did in the office.

  Clayton arrived, extra-large coffee in hand, and they held their regular meeting on Chandler Construction without incident. Clayton made to leave but Cecilia stopped him.

  “Do you know the prosecutor? Briscoe?” she asked.

  “Seen him at legal events. But don’t know him personally,” he answered, still organizing his paperwork.

  “Joey have any trouble with him?” she asked. Clayton shook his head. “JJ? Mr. Chandler,” she corrected herself.

  “No.” He put the paperwork in his briefcase and looked up at Cecilia. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I just don’t understand. Why the push for this trial? I wondered if it was a personal vendetta against the Chandlers.”

  “You watch too many movies,” Clayton told her.

  She ignored him. “I’ve lived her a couple years. I don’t remember there ever being a murder trial here before.”

  He put his coat on. “There has never been a murder here.”

  She stared at Clayton, fearing this was what all the residents thought. That she had murdered the intruder. “Okay, see you later,” she dismissed him.

  Her fingers tapped her laptop’s keys. For the first time, she googled something related to the trial, Daniel Briscoe. She was not a hacker. She would only look in public files, as tempting as it was to go where she wasn’t legally allowed to go. But she was in enough trouble. She didn’t need to add hacking to her list of crimes.

  She had one motivation. The more she knew about her enemy the better, she thought.

  She dismissed the articles on anything related to her trial, anything dated after the incident. She perused all the articles on his previous cases and trials. Most of them ended in plea bargains. Nothing pointed to a vendetta against the Chandlers.

  She checked out his college paper and read any articles where he was mentioned. There was nothing related to any of the Chandlers or her. She regressed through his life until she found what she needed. A vendetta of sorts.

  Sometimes you just have to know where to look.

  CHAPTER 34

  “How are you dealing with the house arrest?” Holden asked, once settled on his barstool, soda in hand.

  Cecilia shrugged. “Not real different from life before the arrest. Not since Joey died anyway. I didn’t leave the house much since the funeral. I work online. I shop online. Anything I need I have delivered.” Ferris walked back to Cecilia and she patted him on the head. “Except Ferris’s walks. Can’t do that now. But he hasn’t been in the mood. I let him run around the yard for exercise. Seems to appease him.” She rubbed his neck before he plodded off for a toy. “The daily routine is the same. Wake up, feed Ferris, work, feed Ferris, go to sleep. Repeat.”

  “You’re still working?” he asked.

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” She spun her soda around in her hand.

  “No negative repercussions on your job after the arrest? With all this media attention?”

  She shook her head no. “I work online. I’m an independent contractor. None of my clients could pick me out of a lineup.” She smiled at her joke but Holden didn’t. “Come on, that was funny! A little arrestee humor? ‘Pick me out of a lineup.’ Get it?”

  Holden didn’t smile at the joke, but he did smile at Cecilia. He loved Cecilia’s smile but he rarely saw it. He could only hope he’d see more of it in the future.

  “But your name? Cecilia Chandler. It’s been on every news program, local and national. No one’s even asked?”

  “I had the business before I got married. It’s under my maiden name, Corrigan. It’s the beauty of working online. They don’t know when times are bad. The clients didn’t know when I got married, when I was widowed, when I was arrested. In that world, I can still be alright. Not fighting to stay out of jail. Not fighting for my life. I can still be CeCe.”

  “CeCe,” Holden said.

  “Yep, just CeCe.” She missed being called CeCe. Joey always called her it. As did her friends and sorority sisters. Since moving to Folley, it was only Joey calling her CeCe. “You can call me CeCe. That’s what my friends do.” She needed to change the subject before tears started to form. “But the ankle monitor itself. That’s an annoyance.”

  She reached down and pointed to the red skin around the ankle monitor. “I’m trying not to scratch it but the skin is so dry. I think I’m scratching it when I’m sleeping.” Her hand hovered over the red ski
n as she considered scratching the itch. The impulse to claw at her leg becoming overwhelming, she pulled her hand back and crossed her arms firmly across her chest. “I wish I could soak it and put some lotion on it. But they said I can’t get it wet.” She looked down at the leg, the urge to scratch the red skin her only thought. She looked away from the leg, hoping to push the itchiness out of her mind. Looking at Holden, she added, “I’m taking a bath with my leg hanging out of the tub. I must look ridiculous.”

  Holden tried not to picture Cecilia, naked in the tub, but it was too late. He’d already seen her half naked while taking the photos of her bruised body. He often found himself seeing those images in his mind. This image, of a now healed Cecilia naked body, would be much harder to push aside.

  “Do you have any alcohol?” he asked.

  She briefly wondered if it was a test. “No. That’s part of the bail restrictions. No alcohol in the house.”

  He smiled. “No, I meant rubbing alcohol.”

  “Oh, okay.” She got up and went to the master bathroom. Ferris followed her. In the medicine cabinet, she collected the bottle of rubbing alcohol and some gauze pads. She returned to find Holden, gazing out the sliding glass door into the dark backyard.

  “Is this what you wanted?” she asked.

  He shook the image of her naked body in the tub out of his head when she spoke.

  What he wanted was her naked in the tub, with him joining her. He settled for touching her in a different way.

  Holden cleared his throat and answered, “Yep. Just sit.” Holding out his hands, she handed him the bottle and gauze. He knelt on the floor as she sat on the stool. Ferris ran over and licked his face. Not the kiss he was dreaming of, but the only one he’d be getting tonight.

  He took her foot and placed it on his knee. He gently cleansed the irritated skin around and under the ankle monitor. He flossed the gauze between the monitor and her skin and ran it around her ankle. He held her calf softly as he inspected the skin. His mouth inches from her skin he fought the urge to kiss her.