by Lauren Carr
“It makes me wonder. Is it me or the times that are changing?” Mac cocked his head at him. “Secret military groups made up of phantom soldiers?”
With a chuckle, Murphy winked at him. “It’s just the latest urban legend that has been making the rounds, Mac.” He returned to punching the bag. He finished with a kick to the bag that almost knocked Mac off his feet.
Sweat dripping from his face, Murphy went over to the bench and picked up his water bottle. With his back to Mac, he took a long drink.
After releasing his hold on the bag, Mac turned around. “You still haven’t answered my question, Murphy.”
Murphy gave Mac a sidelong glance. “If I was, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
“If you were a Phantom, traveling the world on one deadly mission after another, I would have to ask why. I mean, if something goes bad, like is our country going to help you—”
“No, I would be totally on my own,” Murphy answered. “The United States Government would deny knowing anything about me.”
“What kind of man—”
Murphy whirled around. “If you don’t mind my asking, sir, why did you become a homicide detective? Your adoptive father was an engineer. Your mother was a stay-at-home mom. You had the most balanced and normal childhood any kid could have, and yet you chose to go chasing after killers. Look at you. You have how many millions of dollars? You could play golf all day—”
“I hate golf and I stink at tennis.”
“Travel.”
“That I do like,” Mac said with a shrug of his shoulders.
“So why, sir?” Murphy slung a leg over to the other side of the bench in order to face him. “Why do you put a target on your back and put yourself out there? You don’t need the money.”
Mac chuckled. “Considering what’s in my gene pool, it was obviously in my DNA.”
After flashing Mac a grin, Murphy reached across the bench to stroke Gnarly’s back. The German shepherd stretched out to take in the petting. “Do you remember where you were when the towers went down on September eleventh?”
Stung by the question, Mac sighed. He eased down onto the bench on the other side of Gnarly. “Everyone who was alive then remembers that. My partner and I were on our way from downtown Washington to Springfield to question a witness. We were on the expressway coming up to where it passed the Pentagon when we saw the plane coming in. I remember saying to my partner, ‘He’s not going to make Reagan National,’ when it hit the Pentagon. We actually saw it hit. My partner was driving and we almost had a collision.” He lowered his head. “I was absolutely numb. I didn’t know until later that it wasn’t an accident, but an actual attack. All those people …” His voice trailed off.
“Dad—we—lost three friends that day,” Murphy said in a soft voice.
“How old were you then? Thirteen? Twelve?”
“Twelve.”
Mac noted that Murphy was a year older than Jessica.
“We were living in Oakland, California,” Murphy said. “Dad drove back—all the way cross country because the airports were closed and he wanted to get back here to help. He attended three funerals.” He hung his head at the memory.
“I’m sorry, Murphy,” Mac said.
“Three of my friends lost their mother,” Murphy said. “She was a lieutenant like my dad was at the time. Their father was in the Army Corp of Engineers. The older girl, Aimee, was the same age as me. We had gone to elementary school together in Hawaii. Her sister, Joey, was the same age as Sarah. The boy, Troy, was Donny’s age. Aimee had long thick dark hair and the darkest eyes.” Murphy paused to take a long drink of his water. “She was my first crush.”
“I can imagine how awful that must have been for them,” Mac said.
Murphy slowly shook his head. “Turned out, their mother was the stabilizing influence in the family. When she was killed, their father couldn’t adjust. He fell completely apart. He lost it. He became an alcoholic. Lost his job. While he didn’t physically abandon the kids, I guess he did emotionally. I heard all that through friends. I tried to get and stay in touch, but I never got anywhere. Then …”
After a long silence, Mac urged him to go on. “What?”
“I had just moved to Washington for my first assignment after graduating from the academy. I was riding my bike, my new BMW motorcycle, my present to myself after graduating. I was riding home late one night and I came to a traffic light in Crystal City. I’m sitting on my bike at this traffic light, and less than a half a mile behind me is the Pentagon, and I look over at the street corner, and I see this girl, only twenty feet from me, with long, dark wavy hair and these big dark eyes. She is curled up on a piece of cardboard. I still don’t know how I was able to recognize her, but I did. It was Joey.”
“Aimee’s sister?”
Murphy nodded his head. “I took a side street and turned around and came back. She remembered me.” He cocked his head at Mac. “Sarah is in her first year at the Naval Academy, and here is this girl, her exact same age, and she’s living on the street.”
“Where was her family?”
“She said her father had sold the house and moved away. He abandoned all of them. She had no idea where he was. She didn’t know where Troy was either.”
“If he was the same age as Donny, he’d be a minor,” Mac said.
“I know.”
Mac noticed tears come to Murphy’s eyes when he took a drink. “I bought her dinner and put her up in a hotel for a night, but it didn’t do any good. All she cared about was her next high. By the next day, she was out hooking.”
“Aimee?” Mac asked in a soft voice.
“She had taken a bottle of sleeping pills,” Murphy said. “Killed herself … on September 11, 2011.”
“Tenth anniversary of her mother’s death,” Mac noted the obvious.
“When those monsters killed Aimee’s mom, they destroyed that whole family.” Murphy turned to him. “Do you want to know the real irony?”
“What’s that?”
“Aimee and her whole family were Muslim. Third-generation Americans from Indonesia.” Murphy took another drink from his bottle. “Only complete and utter evil would destroy its own kind.”
“And Bauman and Muiz? What role do they play in this war and conspiracy?”
“People like Bauman are in it for greed. Muiz probably hopes to become president or king after Islam conquers our country and declares Sharia law.” Murphy laughed at the thought. “Can you imagine Jessica in a burka? She’d have to cut off her fingernails.”
“Ain’t gonna happen.” Mac eased into the question. “You and Jessica seem to have hit it off.”
Murphy shot Mac a sidelong glance. “Now we come to why you followed me in here. You want to know my intentions with your daughter. Are you apprehensive about your little girl getting mixed up with a Phantom?”
Mac turned toward him. “I like you, Murphy. A lot. I like how you don’t beat around the bush. You’re very capable of taking care of yourself. You’re respectful. You’re the type of man I have dreamed about Jessica becoming involved with. So, I have to ask. What are your intentions with her?”
Murphy locked his gaze with Mac. “I don’t intend to have sex with your daughter, sir.”
Mac was in the middle of a sigh of relief when Murphy added, “I intend to marry her.”
Mac did a hard blink. He sucked in his breath and looked straight at Murphy, waiting for those dimples to flash at him before he burst out laughing. It didn’t come.
“You’re serious,” Mac stated rather than asked.
“If she will have me.”
When Mac said nothing, Murphy asked, “I hope I have your blessing to ask her.”
“Murph—” Mac found himself stuttering. As the father of a lovely, bright, personable, and charming girl, he had envisioned having this conversatio
n with a young man, but he hadn’t envisioned having it in a vacant gym with a German shepherd snoring between the two of them. He thought it would be in a bar or a country club—over a very good cognac. “Do you know how many pairs of shoes that woman owns?” Mac was surprised to hear himself blurt out.
“No,” Murphy replied. “How many?”
“I don’t know,” Mac answered, “but I do know she has a closet in her house dedicated just to them. That’s a lot of shoes! Your whole year’s salary as a navy officer will go toward keeping her shod.”
“Is that a yes or a no to having your blessing?”
“Yes,” Mac stuttered out, “you have my permission.” Seeing a grin coming to the young man’s lips, he added, “But I have to warn you, Murphy—”
“I know. She has a lot of shoes. I’ve been warned.”
Turning serious, Mac reached for his hand.
“What?”
“Jessica …” Mac slowly shook his head. “My daughter is a sweet, vivacious, cunningly smart young lady who has a mind of her own. She gets it from me. Generally, she makes very good decisions.”
“But …”
“Before her inheritance, Jessica was a hard-working college girl,” Mac explained. “She had a hard time. Always broke. Had to do without a lot of things. Well, after becoming an heiress, she made friends and enjoyed the spoils of being wealthy. She loves the party circuit, high-society life, and the company of good-looking men who can wine and dine her.”
“You think she’ll say no?” Murphy stared at the far wall.
“I know she would sleep with you in a heartbeat,” Mac said. “But give up her freewheeling lifestyle to become a navy officer’s wife? I wish she would. If she did, your marriage would have my full blessing.” He patted Murphy’s hand. “But I doubt she will.” Mac sighed when he added, “I’m sorry, Murphy.”
Slowly, Murphy shook his head. “With all due respect, sir—”
“Someone recently told me that when someone starts off with ‘all due respect,’ they’re about to say something disrespectful,” Mac said.
With a laugh, Murphy sat up and flashed a wide grin at him. “Nah, I have nothing but respect for you, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“I have to respect you, because you’re going to be my father-in-law.”
Mac cocked his head at him. Did he hear what I said? Jessica will say no.
“I am going to ask Jessica to marry me,” Murphy said. “She’ll either say yes or no or tell me that she needs more time. I mean, we only met eleven hours ago.”
“That is kind of fast,” Mac admitted.
“I can respect her wanting to give it more time,” Murphy said. “But if her answer is anything but yes, I will keep on asking because I love Jessica with all my heart. I knew from the instant I looked into those eyes of hers and saw into her soul … I knew then that she was my soul mate. I can’t imagine not having her and her shoes in my life.”
Not knowing what to say, Mac stared with wide eyes at Murphy while he packed up his bag. He barely noticed when Murphy stood up and turned to him.
“So there you have it, sir. You followed me in here to ask about my intentions with your daughter, and that’s what they are—plain and simple. I intend to marry her and to be the father of your grandchildren. Are you cool with that?”
Grandchildren? She’s only a little girl! Speechless, Mac nodded his head.
“You don’t look very good.” Murphy bent over to peer at him. “Do you want some water, sir?”
“Maybe a little,” Mac replied through a tight throat.
While Murphy raced off to get a cup of water, Mac felt Gnarly nudge him with his cold nose. “I’m not having a good week, Gnarly.”
In agreement, Gnarly uttered a whine.
Jessica stared down the hallway where Murphy had disappeared to go to the gym. She did not fail to notice her father following close behind. The longer they were gone, the more worried she became.
What are they talking about? Me, of course. I swear, if Dad tells him about my closet dedicated only to my shoes I’ll die—right here and right now. God can take me now.
Then, another thought crossed her mind.
Oh, Dad, please don’t tell Murphy about the time I bleached my hair blonde and it turned bright orange instead.
“Hello, Jessica.”
The low feminine voice behind her almost made Jessica jump out of her skin. She whirled around to see Dr. Dora Washington looking questioningly at her. The scent of a hot submarine sandwich reminded Jessica that none of them had eaten anything. The hotel had been evacuated before the food at the rehearsal dinner was served. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Is Bogie in his office? I finished the on-scene examination of the two bodies at David’s place and thought Bogie should eat something. So I brought him dinner.”
Jessica swallowed down the growl in her stomach at the scent of food. “I think he is.”
When Dora turned away, Jessica clutched her arm. “Can I ask you a professional question?”
“Is this about your application for med school?” Dr. Washington had offered to write a letter of recommendation for her. Jessica had yet to make a decision, even though she had already graduated with her master’s degree in excellent standing at William and Mary University.
“I’m thinking of Georgetown Medical School,” Jessica said.
“That’s an excellent school.”
“But what I wanted to ask you about is Russell Dooley’s autopsy.”
Dr. Washington frowned. “I can’t talk to you about that.”
“Dad didn’t kill him.”
“I’m sure he didn’t—”
“I know he was stabbed twenty-nine times,” Jessica said.
“I’m not confirming or denying that.”
“Did you do a tox screen on Dooley?”
“That is SOP during an autopsy,” Dr. Washington said.
“What was his blood alcohol level?” Jessica asked.
Dr. Washington crossed her arms and regarded the young woman. Her eyebrow arched. “Point one eight.”
“Wow,” Jessica said.
“Plus he had a very high level of acetaminophen.”
“Pain reliever,” Jessica confirmed.
“Several times the recommended dosage,” the medical examiner said. “But I doubt if it did any good when he was stabbed to death.” She turned around to head in the direction of the squad room and Bogie’s office.
Not yet finished with their discussion, Jessica followed her. “He had to have been feeling pain, considering that he was stabbed twenty-nine times. Where were most of the stab wounds?”
“Chest and stomach.”
“Not his back?”
“No.”
“How about defensive wounds?” Jessica asked.
“He did have a couple of blade marks on his hands, yes.”
“And his arms?”
Dr. Washington stopped to turn to her. “Arms?”
Jessica held up her arms and crossed them in front of her chest and face. “If you were being stabbed from the front, it is only natural that you would get cuts across your forearms when you tried to shield yourself from the knife. Did Dooley have any there?”
“No, but considering the amount of alcohol and painkiller he had in his system, he may have been too intoxicated or drugged to have put up that much of a defense.”
“Maybe,” Jessica said. “How many of those twenty-nine stab wounds were fatal?”
“One.”
“One?” Jessica let out a squawk. “Out of twenty-nine, only one was fatal?”
“It was one plunged into the stomach and through the spleen,” Dora said. “If he had received medical attention, he could have survived, but he bled out in the bathtub filled with water, which aided his bleeding out.”
&
nbsp; “And how deep were the other twenty-eight stab wounds?”
“They were only an inch or so deep,” Dora said. “As a matter of fact, based on my experience and the stab wounds that I have seen in my career, I would suggest that the police look for a woman.”
“Not Dad?”
Dora grinned at her. “Knowing your father, if he had killed Russell Dooley in a crime of passion, he would not have had to have stabbed him twenty-nine times before killing him.”
“He would have just shot him,” Jessica said.
“I can’t picture your father killing a man unless it was in self-defense,” Doc Washington said. “But even though we all know him and know what type of man he is, until we can explain how his blood and DNA ended up at that crime scene, he’s going to be under suspicion for killing Russell Dooley.”
Jessica sighed miserably. “And I know that there are haters who will jump to believe it—unless we can find out who planted it there—”
“And how,” Doc Washington said. “He does have one thing in his favor.”
“He doesn’t have a mark on him,” Jessica said. “David said that all the blood there made it look like Dad had cut himself while stabbing Dooley.”
“How does a man leave his blood behind at a scene without cutting himself?”
Jessica and Doc Washington stared at each other with the question in their eyes.
“Let me think about that,” Jessica said.
“You got none of your information from me.” Dora arched her lovely eyebrow at her again. “I need to get this sandwich to Bogie. He turns into a grizzly bear when he’s hungry.”
“Well, we can’t have that.” Jessica returned to staring down the hallway to the gym door where her father was alone with Murphy Thornton—talking about what?
Oh, dear Lord, please don’t let Dad tell Murphy about the time I lifted my top on the bus to show all of my friends my first bra!