Miller Avenue Murder: An addictive police procedural legal psychological thriller

by Nenny May

  It wasn’t irregular for a child groomed by a mentally unstable parent to develop signs of mental distress.

  “It wasn’t like the last one.” At the click and clack of slacks against wood, she glanced up at him. He’d begun to pace the petite space of her office. She’d thoughtlessly recoiled into her seat, picking at her nails. A nervous habit.

  She fought it and straightened.

  “Tell me about the last one,” She reached beneath her table for her bag, not once taking her eyes off Mr. Campbell. She pulled out her phone and turned on the recorder.

  “This one was smaller.” He stopped, eyes pinned on the wall by the door, his back to her. She eased ever so slightly. He couldn’t hurt her when he wasn’t looking at her.

  What was with her patients and that wall? Two patients in less than an hour. She didn’t think too much into it. It wasn’t necessary.

  “Who was the last fight with?” She’d chosen her words carefully.

  “My mother.” Her heart pounded in her chest.

  “Do you want to take a seat and talk about it?” He hadn’t moved. That worked in her favor. She wasn’t entirely comfortable with having him in this state, within reach.

  “She lied. I loved her to death, but she was a liar.”

  “Blake Campbell?” She reached for a pen and a notepad. There was a noticeable quiver in her hands.

  “It was after Christmas dinner. Claire had been packing up in the upstairs bedroom.”

  She tensed. She couldn’t get her fingers to move. She’d prepared herself for a confession, she’d anticipated it. Why did she close up all of a sudden when it seemed like he was going to reveal what he’d done to Blake Campbell?

  “W-what happened after Christmas dinner?” She held her breath.

  Perhaps it was the way he remained unmoved, shoulders squared and fists clenched, or the silence he’d retreated into, to the point she couldn’t even hear his breathing, but something in the air didn’t feel right to Lisa Patterson.

  She considered the desk phone yet again, this time too panicked to distort the suspense that hung like a raincloud.

  “You bitch…” He rasped, he’d cocked his head to the side, and from what Lisa could see from behind her desk, he seemed to be speaking to someone or something by the entrance, by the white oak wood door. “The company was bankrupt. Campbell’s antiques… Campbell’s House of Timber… they were all bankrupt. You didn’t have a dime to your name…” He rolled his shoulders. There was a bulge in the vein that ran up his forearm.

  He took a step. Then another, and another, and Lisa Patterson had let out an audible yelp when his fist collided with the wall by the door. The wall that once balanced a beaten-up car seat. His fist went right through. Her body was victim to trembling.

  “Greedy whore couldn’t let go of that fucking house… No… and when I asked why you did it…”

  She’d reached for the office phone and dialed Julie’s desk.

  No answer.

  Tears ran down her cheeks, hot and fast.

  “He gave you permission. That’s all you had to tell me.” He was glaring daggers at the hole in the wall. She was sobbing, caring little about whether or not he heard her. She’d been in this position before. The last patient had her pinned against the wall behind her desk, his large callous hands curled around her neck. Dean Gibney had intended to take the life of his cheating wife. He’d seen Lisa as his ex-wife. He’d been as delusional as Paul was at the other end of the room. “He gave you permission to prostitute yourself to save the house…”

  With fingers that couldn’t seem to click the right buttons again, she tried Bridget’s desk. Where was everyone?

  “They were right… Those damned Detectives, they were right… you were batshit crazy. You listened to a fucking picture of a dead man and sold yourself… your body to men for money for a house I didn’t even live in anymore…”

  Bridget answered on the fourth ring.

  Her chest filled with hope.

  “Help!” She screamed at the top of her lungs.

  He turned to her. His eyes had reddened, the left one had a twitch, he’d been hunched over, his breathing, heavy, strained.

  “She deserved to die there… in the house he told her to save…she deserved… to die…”

  And then he met her gaze. She couldn’t breathe.

  Channel Six had become the leading news station in Tillamook. They were the CNN of national, small town news! They were number one.

  Annabelle hadn’t cried this time... Okay, a few stray tears had slid down her rosy cheeks in the shower, but that was it! She’d seen the success coming. Her idea was gold, full-proof. That didn’t mean it didn’t leave her feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside. It did.

  To celebrate, the night she’d returned to the studio from the event center, from their interview with Josephine and Mark, she’d invited Frank and Amanda for a round of beers at American Angels. As expected, Amanda had opted out.

  “I’ve got kids, Riley and Decker, they need me and I can’t find a sitter last minute,” Amanda had leaned against the wall of Annabelle’s cubicle, regret boldly imprinted on her heart shaped face. The woman had the kind of face Annabelle could only describe as ‘camera ready’.

  Annabelle didn’t consider herself camera ready. She knew how to do her makeup to the point she was presentable before a lens, but she wouldn’t go as far as describing herself as fitting for the role she played.

  When she’d wandered into journalism for the first time, it hadn’t been to become a reporter chasing the story. Sure, Chase had gassed her up, told her that she was made for the camera, but her true calling had been in the role of a broadcast technician. She’d studied Electronics Engineering in the University of Frankfurt for gods’ sakes, where in there did they teach ‘how to be camera ready’?

  Becoming a reporter had been an impulse, she’d accompanied Chase to Tillamook and this had been the only available slot in her field. She’d told herself she was in the industry; she could transfer whenever there was an opening. There was never an opening. She couldn’t transfer because the current Broadcast Technician Erin Marks was great at his goddamn job.

  “You have kids?” She blurted out thoughtlessly, reaching beneath her table for her bag.

  “Really?” Amanda had her hands on her hips. Annabelle rummaged through her bag for her phone itching to take another look at the Email Simon Neil had sent her about their ratings.

  “I pegged you more as a cat lady.” Frank shrugged not once glancing up from his phone.

  “Hurtful,” Amanda frowned. “My husband is deployed to Caserma-Ederle in Italy; I have two kids; a boy—Decker and a girl—Riley.”

  “That’s cute, you just never struck me as… motherly?” Frank said. He’d been leaning against the wall by the only picture Annabelle had put up. It was a grinning landscape of she and Chase the day they wandered into Tillamook.

  She’d taken the picture on the 101, Chase with his Ray Ban sunglasses had grinned for the camera, his left hand hung loosely over the steering wheel. She’d taken the picture from the passenger seat, her hair dancing in the breeze from the rolled down windows.

  Their smiles had held hope for new beginnings. She couldn’t forget the warmth in her chest, the excitement tingling in her fingertips… How could she when the feeling had returned?

  If anything, it was stronger as she sat at her wheely chair in her cubicle cornered by the dust covered bookshelf at Channel Six Studios, the night pouring in through the floor windows. That shelf had as much action as her romance life… it had none.

  “Why don’t we bring the party to your house?” Annabelle pitched? They had to celebrate. Not only had her idea saved their jobs, but they’d beat Lucy Wilkens. Sure, viewers still tuned into Channel Nine for breaking News, but they were hooked to the story of Blake Campbell, and that was worth popping open a couple of beers.

  “Fine, if you can promise to come in after I’ve put Riley and Decker to sleep, I won�
�t leave you and Frank in the freezing cold.”

  “What did I do?” Eyebrows furrowed and eyes off his phone, he’d seemed sincerely confused.

  Annabelle had taken that as her win and barely lingering around after Amanda had taken her leave, she and Frank set off to Safeway for a carton of beers and enough packets of chips, dips and chocolate bars to take them through the night.

  “Isn’t that… too much?” He jabbed a finger toward the cart that had more packets of sweet and savory treats than necessary as they approached the checkout.

  The Safeway on 4th had been closing when Frank and Annabelle had wandered through the automated doors. They’d gotten there just in time!

  “Is there really such a thing as too many chips? And didn’t she say she had kids; they might like it.” She pushed the squeaking metal cart towards the woman at the checkout line.

  “Kids, not an entire pre-school, we could lose a couple.” But she didn’t want to lose a couple. Did she have to explain that she was scared of going back? Of returning to the Annabelle that would shudder at the thought of carbs and salty snacks?

  “We aren’t losing a couple,” She politely retorted. “If you don’t finish yours, I will gladly help,” She began placing the whining packets onto the checkout table. The woman eyed her skeptically. What was wrong with people in this town? Couldn’t they mind their damn business?

  That didn’t matter, because, like promised, she and Frank crept into Amanda’s home after midnight, after the children had been put to sleep. The News Anchor had a welcoming home. Grey walls accentuated by black and pink floral wallpaper greeted Annabelle—hands hugged around a paper supermarket bag—and Frank who’d lugged a carton of Corona’s into the living room. The floors were carpeted and Annabelle didn’t need to guess, that hadn’t been a design choice but a safety decision.

  “You’re here!” Amanda had chimed from the couch when Frank had shut the door behind him.

  “Of course, we are,” Annabelle smiled setting the bag down on the wooden coffee table that barely had any room left on it. Occupied with magazines, a coffee mug, a coaster and a basket of kid’s toys, the paper supermarket bag was close to tipping off the edge.

  “How old are Decker and Riley?” Annabelle reached for a plastic baby-doll.

  “Decker is five and Riley’s three.” Dropping the doll back where she’d picked it, Annabelle had to side with Frank on his earlier opinion. Amanda didn’t seem all that motherly, but knowing that she was raising two small children, practically on her own, gave Annabelle a new found respect for the woman.

  Suddenly, Amanda’s overbearing personality made a little more sense.

  “We did it!” Frank pulled three bottles out of the carton and set it on the floor by the coffee table.

  “And we can rub it in that bitch Lucy Wilken’s face!” Annabelle agreed as Frank handed the bottles to them.

  “To being number one,” He rose his bottle.

  “Eherm,” Amanda interrupted pushing herself off her sunshine yellow plush couch and onto her feet. “To Annabelle, because we sure as hell wouldn’t have thought about this ourselves.” She held Annabelle in a stare that wailed of admiration.

  With a smile she couldn’t contain, Annabelle clicked her glass with her colleagues.

  From a woman scorned for her lack of initiative, she’s been able to not only save her job, boost the Studio’s ratings and make two friends along the way.

  She wouldn’t have her success any other way.

  The following morning, Annabelle Dawson strutted with confidence out of her car and onto the yard of Faith Thomson. She was the next person they’d chosen to interview, bringing the story to familiar grounds. In her mid-fifties, the woman had been a friend of the deceased.

  Like a broken recorder, Annabelle couldn’t stop rerunning her own satisfaction. She’d beat Lucy Wilkens. She was the top reporter in Tillamook! And Simon Neil had bumped up her pay.

  She’d beat her rival and gotten a raise.

  Things couldn’t get any better…

  She stopped by Amanda and Faith in the middle of the yard.

  Faith Thompson been home, peering through the window when Blake Campbell had pulled up by the curb of her house on 6th. Why Blake hadn’t gone to her own home that night, Faith couldn’t answer.

  “And did you ask, Blake?” Amanda followed the whiskey skinned woman up her porch steps. The house was small, bright blue with a single window at the top. Overgrown grass ran up the yard and Annabelle couldn’t help but wonder why the elderly woman hadn’t taken any care of her blue house on 6th. With a little trimming and weeding, the yard could mirror the neighbouring homes.

  Faith didn’t look like the kind of woman that lived in the little blue house. The woman was chubby, well put together and clean, heart shaped face glimmering in the afternoon sun, cat-like-eyes fringed with long lashes and cupids bow lips glossed. The home had cracked windows, broken window sills and holes in the porch steps. How did a woman that managed to get makeup on live in a home that had been falling apart?

  “I did, but she didn’t tell me anything. She just said that she couldn’t bare going home all by herself.”

  “And her son? Didn’t she care that her son was home?” Annabelle wanted to know. She followed in front of Frank’s rolling camera. The inside of the house was dark, grim and as she’d imagined, as unkept as the outside, clothes covered the floors, the walls were a dark brown. No pictures hung on the walls.

  Her stomach was upset.

  “She didn’t care.”

  Annabelle gulped.

  “Can you tell us a bit more of what had happened that night?” Amanda had rooted herself by the entrance, uninterested in taking any further steps into the little blue house on 6th. Annabelle didn’t blame her friend; she didn’t think she had it in her to explore more than she’d seen already.

  “Well, I’d been curious, so I gently pulled open that front door,” The woman pointed to the camera. “And with the porch lights off, perched on a bench by the door.”

  ◆◆◆

  Blake Campbell hadn’t confronted Richard Dean at the party. No, she’d waited till he’d driven her home to express her disappointment. She’d pressed her lips in a thin line, thin carved eyebrows drawn together and a nagging voice at the back of her mind. She was stupid. How could she have fallen for the little act of kindness he’d displayed in front of his mother?

  He was as much a shark as everyone else in Tillamook. He was a monster.

  No one was as good to her as Christopher had been.

  “What the hell was that?” She’d sat beneath the twilight, in the passenger seat of his Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph. He had the same cars Christopher had, but he didn’t have the same heart. Christopher Campbell had been a good man, a loving one who’d respected her. Richard didn’t and he’d more than proved his opinion of her.

  “You’re welcome,” He’d smiled smugly at her. A prostitute? Was that what she looked like to him? She couldn’t deny her sense of style was provocative, and the media had painted her as a gold-digging slut, but didn’t he see through that? Or was he as narrowminded as everyone else?

  “I am not a prostitute!” Her tone was firm. She wasn’t angry. She was beyond that. Disappointed maybe, but she didn’t have it in her to yell at him. It wasn’t the first time someone had thrown it in her face that she was cheap. She’d shrugged college and chose to marry an old man, to everyone else, she was a whore, but could she help it if she’d fallen for the older man? Hell, she was sure half of Tillamook thought that she was a skank for marrying a man that was thirty years older than she was. But not once did they stop to consider, maybe she was happy with that older man, maybe he saw a side of her no one in her conservative small town could see. “You wanted business, didn’t you?” He tipped his head as if she was the one that needed to be understood.

  “Yes, business for my antique store!” He chuckled.

  “That old place? When I walked in, I thought you were ready to
shut it down,” He killed the engine of the car.

  “I want to keep it from going bankrupt.” She explained.

  “I hate to be the one to tell you this, Princess, but your business is as dead as your husband. I’m offering you an opportunity to make real money.” With a clenched fist, her teeth clutched onto her bottom lip, she let herself out of his car.

  He rolled down the passenger window. “In this business, we can both earn our keep.”

  She huffed. “This is why I married Christopher; he doesn’t think like a child.”

  “Stop trying to justify your mistake, Campbell.” The engine revved to life once more. “And despite being a complete bitch, I’ll be waiting if you want to take these men up on their offer to make you a very rich woman.”

  “Go to hell, Richard Dean.”

  Pulling out of the curb and onto the street, he’d taken her words all too literally.

  His body was found the following morning.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The night that never ended…

  The walk was quiet and far. She’d been on this path before. The long stretch by the shore, lulled by the music of the waves kissing the cool sand. The last she’d been there hadn’t been with Cecilia. It had been after.

  After the shattered glass had been sprinkled like salt by the kitchen window, after the bloodcurdling screams had gone unheard, and long after the body had been uncovered.

  The guilt that had pursued her had been steadfast.

  In a bid to not get swept away by memories that threatened to pull her under in its tousled updrafts, she drew to a stop. This was too close to home. Too close to the woman who’d been buried years, but her grip on her daughter was unwavering.

  As if sensing that she was no longer trailing behind his rapid strides, Detective Dawson paused, turned and tilted his head in a wordless question.