“Yes, Sir, if that’s all right with you and the chief.” Martin consciously breathed in deeply. He had felt like he couldn’t get his breath all during the conversation until that point.
“Have you talked to the chief?” Boyd cocked his head.
“No, Sir. I thought protocol called for me to speak to you first.” Martin was surprised at Boyd’s non-reaction. Maybe it was going to be a delayed one.
“Of course.” His eyebrows drew together. “You know something like this has never happened before. At least, not in my memory. You want to tell me why, Richardson? Here I was thinking of you as captain after I’m gone, and you don’t even want to be lieutenant. Just tell me why.” He stroked his closely cropped mustache as he waited for Martin to answer.
Martin cleared his throat. “A lot of things, Cap. I miss the streets. I don’t like to have to reprimand the other guys. And the politics, I hate the politics.”
“Chief isn’t going to be happy about this. She brags on you all the time. You’re one of the few cops with a college degree, a four-year college degree.”
Grimacing, Martin said, “I know. I’ve thought about this for a long time. Would you talk to her about it for me?”
“When do you want to do it?”
“Yesterday would be all right with me.”
“It won’t be that easy, I hate to tell you. What’s she going to do to replace you? It’ll take time to fill your spot. You know all that stuff. I wouldn’t get my hopes up that it’ll be real soon if I was you, Richardson.”
“But you’ll start the ball rolling, won’t you, Captain?”
“Anxious to get out there in the hot summer sun, are you?”
Martin snorted with laughter. “Yeah, I’m looking forward to sweating again.” He stood. “Thank you, Sir.”
Captain Boyd shook his head. “I think you’re nuts, but it’s your life. I’ll let you know as soon as I know something myself.”
The captain stood and reached out his hand to Martin. Surprised, Martin took it. He didn’t think he’d shaken the captain’s hand since he’d made lieutenant. It was an odd feeling, ominous somehow.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DENA
After tucking Melissa into bed, Dena sat on the edge for a few moments and gazed at her daughter’s face as the child’s features relaxed into sleepiness. She sang a lullaby in hushed tones and caressed the baby-soft cheek. A sudden outpouring of love, like a powerful electrical surge, sprang from Dena’s being. She scooped her daughter into her arms, cradling the five-year-old against her chest. Stroking her hair, Dena whispered, “I love you, Baby Girl.”
The child squealed and squirmed, so Dena released her, laying her back down. Melissa’s mouth made a large O as she yawned. “Nite, nite, Mommy.”
“Nite, nite, Baby,” Dena said as she stood. “I’ve got to go tuck Paul in now.” She leaned down and kissed her.
Melissa scooted under the covers as Dena checked the window to make sure it was locked. She put out the light and pulled the door almost all the way closed.
Across the hall, Paul was sitting on the bed and playing with his airplanes. “You’re supposed to be in the bed, Paul, not on the bed,” she said, trying to be stern. He was so cute she had a hard time being strict with him.
“Mommy, read me a story,” he said, getting under the covers with his airplane.
“Okay, which one do you want to hear tonight?” She walked to his overcrowded bookcase.
“Little Engine That Could.”
Dena had already pulled the book from the shelf, guessing it would be his choice. Nine times out of ten, it was. She sat next to him. “You sure you want to hear this old story again?”
“Yes, Mommy, it’s my best one.” Paul’s knitted eyebrows and tightly pressed lips gave her a glimpse of the serious adult he would become.
She stretched out on his bed next to him, her arm around his shoulders. He smelled like Ivory soap. When the story ended, he rubbed his eyes and cuddled up to her. She hugged and kissed him. She had to resist an urge to lie there on the edge of his bed and hold him for a while. He and Melissa were the only children she would ever have. Zack had made sure of that. He’d extracted an agreement from her early on that they would stop after two, even if they had been of the same sex, saying it was too expensive to have many. Zack had wanted her to get a tubal ligation, but she had refused. She told him if anyone was going to be sterilized, he would have to do it. And he did.
Paul pulled his covers up to his neck and turned over, facing the wall. Dena kissed the back of his head and whispered goodnight. Glancing at his window, she stepped over and checked behind the fire engine curtains to make sure it was locked, too. She turned out his light and closed his door all but a little so he could have some light from the hall the way he liked it.
She checked the locks on the front door, unlocking them and relocking them. She walked around the house to the back doors, checking them, and peered into the garage to make sure the door was down even though she knew she’d left it that way. She put out most of the lights, leaving the outside ones burning.
After she took a hot shower, she pulled on a long, white granny gown and slipped into bed. She realized she was adhering to a ritual she’d adopted, but it made her feel better. She punched the power button on the TV remote just to get some noise into the room and picked up her Kindle. When she’d been young, when she’d been childless, she’d often read more than a book a week. Now, she was grateful for the two or three pages she could get through before she put out the light.
Reaching out to her bedside table, she tugged on the top drawer to make sure it was still locked. It was. She patted the top of the table as though to reward it for behaving well and turned her attention to her novel, the volume of the TV drowning out the noises of the night.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ALAN SELLERS
He moved around his apartment like a football player on the sidelines of a close game, never able to sit in one place for more than a few moments. He had put his plan into action, but it wasn’t as simple as he’d thought it would be. He’d called Ginny. He’d cried for her. He’d begged her. He’d promised her. But she didn’t react like she should have. She’d hesitated. He could hear her sister, Mary, in the background. She needed to shut her fat mouth.
He began shadow boxing. “Pow.” A left to Mary’s eye. “Bang.” A right to Ginny’s mouth. Dancing around on the balls of his feet, he could see himself circling the lawyer, ready to move in for the kill. Then in his mind’s eye, he saw Martin in the background. What he wouldn’t like to do to her brother.
Dropping onto the sofa for a moment and then bouncing up on his feet again, Sellers continued to move around the room. He’d told Ginny to call him back in an hour, but it had been an hour and a half. He wanted to know why. Had Mary stopped her? He’d asked her to give him her decision. She’d better call, or she’d be sorry. She’d be sorry anyway. He slammed one fist into the other.
The phone rang, startling him. He drew a deep breath before picking it up, straining to sound casual, reining in his anxiety about what she would say. “Hello,” he said, his voice too loud in his own ears.
“Alan?” Ginny’s soft, little-girl voice sounded breathless. He could picture her in some boxers and a muscle tee shirt, her long, blond hair flowing around her small breasts.
“Hi, Babe. Glad you called.” He tried to sound friendly and confident. She would crawl back to him. He just knew it. Women were like dumb little lambs. They needed a man to keep them in line, like a shepherd.
“Alan, I thought it over, and I called my lawyer. Did you really mean it when you said you’d get help for your drinking problem?”
She sounded scared. He felt good knowing he had power over her. He’d reassure her. Convince her of his good intentions. Sweet-talk her, just like before they moved in together. “Sure, doll, anything you want. Just come back to me ‘cause I’m lonely for you.�
� He almost laughed aloud. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” He had her where he wanted her.
“I miss you, too. I want to come back ...”
“Oh, I’m so glad.” He tried to sound sincere. “I knew once you thought things over, you’d see it my way.” He laid down on the sofa and stared at the ceiling.
“Wait a minute. I’ve been wondering, who are you going to go see?”
He frowned at his cell phone. “I don’t know, Honey, you come back, and we’ll decide together. I’ll go to whoever you want. Your lawyer got any suggestions?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t asked her,” she said.
Sellers realized his work was cut out for him. He had a plan, but maybe it wouldn’t be as easy as he thought. “Well, come on home, and we’ll make an appointment together to ask her.”
“I’m not coming back until you get help. After you’ve been to counseling or AA or whatever, we can talk about it, okay?”
“No, not okay. I want you back now, Ginny. I love you and miss you. I’m lonely for you.” He could feel the burn rising inside him.
“No. You have to understand. I can’t come back now. My lawyer said for me not to go back until you get some help. Martin told me there’s a batterers’ program you can go to and AA meetings all over town.”
He’d like to tell Martin to go to hell. “Honey, I wouldn’t be this way if it wasn’t for you. Don’t you understand that? You come back, and we’ll go together. We’ll help each other.” He felt like he stood on the edge of a cliff and could fall either way.
“No. You have to do it yourself. You have to prove to me that you really mean what you say, and then I’ll come back.”
A vein pounded in his forehead. He hadn’t been this angry since the day she’d left. “Ginny, Darlin’, you don’t understand. I need you to help me. You don’t know what you mean to me. If you really loved me, you’d come home now and help me get through this. I can’t do it alone.”
“Yes, you can. You can do it—”
“Baby, come home. It’ll be so much easier for me if you’re here cheering me on. You do love me, don’t you? Don’t you want to help me?” His pulse raced like one of those dogs that used to race at that track on the mainland. If he could only hold on.
“Of course I love you. That’s why I’m doing this. It’s the best thing I can do. For us.”
He couldn’t hold on. A dam-like feeling burst inside of him. “You’re so stupid. I don’t want you anyway. Nobody wants you. All you know how to do is spread your legs,” he bellowed into the phone. He felt like he’d just careened over a cliff and couldn’t find anything to grab onto to stop himself. Finally, he said, “You and your prissy lawyer. I’ll get you for this. You’ll be sorry. I’m gonna cut your face off, and when I’m through with you, I’m gonna do her, too. You better be looking over your shoulder, because the first time you don’t, you’re dead—”
“Don’t ...” She sobbed into the phone, and that pleased him.
“I ain’t listening to you no more. You just remember what I said.” Breathing hard, he clicked off his phone and threw it across the room. After several moments, the flame began to fade. He picked up his fillet knife from the coffee table and danced his fingers along the razor-sharp edge he’d spent hours honing. His sullen expression evolved into a sneer.
Without his even knowing it, the knife had become an extension of himself. No longer simply a tool, more like another limb. He had it so sharp now that he could separate skin from flesh easier than peel from a grape.
He would catch Ginny when she least expected it. It might take some time. But what else did he have? He made a promise to himself and to his father, whose voice he heard inside his head. “Yes. I’m going to have the time of my life.”
Sliding his knife’s cutting-edge over the callus on his thumb, he drew a thin line of blood as he continued thinking of what he would do to her. It wasn’t often he didn’t get what he wanted, though since his father had died it had become more frequent than he liked.
At the realization that Martin had gotten involved on top of Ginny staying at Mary’s house, and a woman lawyer wielding more power over Ginny than he did, Sellers got mad again. No one was gonna get between him and Ginny and his plans. No one. Not her brother or her sister. And for sure not that lawyer.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARTIN
A week after Martin had been in Dena Armstrong’s office, he was waiting to testify in a criminal case when she came rushing from the direction of the elevators. He’d been reviewing his notes from the murder investigation and talking to his ex-partner, Joe Morales. She all but knocked them down in her determination to get where she was going. Martin waylaid her. “Whoa.”
Armed with the handle of her roller bag in one hand and an inch-thick file in the other, her focus lay elsewhere. She stopped and stared at him a moment as if trying to figure out who had spoken to her.
“Lieutenant Richardson,” she said, her face lighting up. “Hi.” Glancing at Joe, then in the direction of the courtroom, and back to Martin, she said, “Ah, waiting to testify?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” She looked good. Her reddish-brown hair had been flying as she hurried toward them. Her large-framed glasses made her face look like a little mouse’s. She was almost as tiny as his sisters. She wore little in the way of make-up, but her cheeks and lips were rosy. Her suit stopped just a bit above her knee. Her legs weren’t bad.
Facing backwards, she walked away from them. “Well, nice to see you. I’m running late.” She shrugged as she scrambled to enter the other courtroom and called, “Bye now,” in a loud whisper.
“Not bad,” Morales said when Martin turned back to him.
“My sister’s lawyer.”
“I see.” Morales raised his eyebrows.
“No, really…she’s married, but she seems like a nice lady.” Martin knew Joe watched his face for a reaction. Joe didn’t say anything more and Martin didn’t either. Glancing at the door through which she’d passed, he wondered when she’d be coming out. He wouldn’t mind talking some things over with her.
The door of the first courtroom opened a minute later. “Hey, Richardson, you’re up.” The first assistant district attorney, a man only a bit older than Martin, held the door. Martin clapped his hand on Morales’ shoulder and headed inside toward the witness stand.
At four o’clock, Martin’s testimony concluded, and the judge released him from the subpoena so he could leave the courthouse. He exited the courtroom and nodded at Morales. The rules forbade them from discussing what had been said. Joe was testifying next.
Martin walked down the hall. When he cracked open the other courtroom door, Dena Armstrong huddled at the counsel table with an older male. A woman, who Martin assumed was the wife since they were in family court, sat on the witness stand. Another woman, tall, thin, dressed in a white, double-breasted pantsuit, wrote on the Panaboard with red marker. Martin tiptoed into the courtroom.
The judge acknowledged him with a glance and a raise of her eyebrows. He inclined his head and smiled the briefest of smiles. They knew each other slightly. He’d had to testify before her a couple of times on juvenile cases. Besides that, the judge had come to the Pig Pen, the police officers’ union hall, and asked for their endorsement when she ran for election.
The other attorney glanced at him and continued her Q & A. Mrs. Armstrong gave no indication she’d even heard anyone in the back of the courtroom. She scribbled on a yellow legal pad. He listened to the testimony. When it became Mrs. Armstrong’s turn to question the wife, Martin enjoyed watching her cross-examination, though she seemed too nice. She politely led the woman through a list of property the woman agreed her husband could have, too politely, in Martin’s opinion. He began to wonder whether she had been the right choice for Ginny. What if she wasn’t assertive enough? What if she wimped out on Ginny? Ginny didn’t seem to think that of her, but what if Ginny just didn’t
know any better? He listened closely to see whether he needed to reconsider his choice of attorneys for his sister.
“Isn’t there anything else you’d be willing to let Harold have?” Her voice rose. “How about the shirt off his back?”
“Objection, argumentative,” the other attorney said as she jumped up from her chair.
Martin’s interest picked up.
“Mrs. Armstrong, you know better than to be sarcastic with witnesses. I won’t tolerate argumentative questioning. Sustained.”
Dena stood. “Sorry, Your Honor, withdrawn. All right, Mrs. Tyler, let’s go over a few other things, then.”
The woman sat a bit straighter in the witness chair.
“You want the house.”
“I owned it before the marriage. It’s my separate property.”
“Yes, Ma’am, but didn’t you and Harold install a twenty-five thousand gallon swimming pool since marriage? And isn’t it paid for?”
“Well, yes, we did. He didn’t want to, but I’ve always been a swimmer. He complained every time we had to make a payment. He didn’t—”
“Objection, nonresponsive,” Mrs. Armstrong said, standing.
“Sustained,” the judge said. “Mrs. Tyler, just answer the questions as put to you and don’t elaborate. Your attorney gets another chance in a moment.”
Mrs. Armstrong sat back down. “Okay. You want to be fair to your husband, don’t you, Mrs. Tyler?” Just as the woman started to answer, Dena said, “Strike that.” She rifled through some papers on her table. “Okay, you added a pool. You remodeled the kitchen. You added a guestroom and bathroom. And you remodeled the master bedroom and the bathroom. Your home is now worth three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Isn’t that what you put on your inventory form, Mrs. Tyler?”
The woman glanced at her attorney. “Yes, I guess.”
“And it was valued at the time you bought it at one hundred five thousand dollars?”
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