I’d heard the words as clear as day. I just couldn’t believe them. Really, it was more that I refused to believe what I was hearing. I got choked up and was only able to muster one word in response.
“What?”
Paul spelled it out for me again, trying to be as empathetic as possible. “I’m sorry, but your boyfriend is dead.”
Denial lost its grip on me as reality sunk in. I froze, dead in my tracks. For a few moments, I couldn’t talk, blink, or even breathe. My lungs constricted until I finally gasped.
As a paramedic, Paul was clearly familiar with the emotions that were bowling me over like a snowplow in the night.
“You should sit down,” he said.
That was a rational thought that I was ill equipped to process after receiving such unbelievable news. Instead of taking Paul’s advice, my body had other ideas.
The knots that had been tied in my stomach suddenly refused to be ignored.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” I said.
Chapter Five
As my instincts took over, I found myself rushing outside, not only to get my bearings back, but on a subconscious level, to put some distance between me and that gut-wrenching scene. A part of me wanted to keep running as far as I could. Intellectually, I knew I couldn’t outrun my problems. Emotionally, I wanted to try.
I never thought I’d be in such a hurry to bolt outside on a night with subzero temperatures. Then again, I could add that to the growing list of things I never thought I’d do in my life. Even if it was frigid, the air was fresh and a welcome change from the stifling, claustrophobic environment I’d just been in. The longer I stood in Jake’s office, the more it felt like the walls were closing in around me.
As the wintry night greeted me with a gust of brutally cold air, I was brought back to reality. So much for making a run for it. Instead, I stopped dead in my tracks.
I immediately regretted my last thought the moment it came to my mind. Dead in my track, what an unfortunate turn of phrase, given the circumstances. So much for clearing my head. My mind didn’t need further prompting. It went back to fixating on exactly what I was trying to avoid.
My thoughts were squarely on Jake once again. That shouldn’t have surprised me. I could run away from the sight of his body all I wanted. Chasing away images of him in my mind was the hard part. More importantly, no matter how far I ran, those images would stay with me.
The only comfort, if it could even be considered that, was that the chill in the air kept my stomach in line. I no longer felt queasy. That feeling of bordering on throwing up was replaced by my body shivering.
If I wasn’t already in a terrible-enough mood, the cold amplified my discontent. With my mood exacerbated, I didn’t know what to expect. It was a dangerous combination, the mixture of being on edge because of the weather and feeling bereft over Jake’s death. When combined, they melded into an unruly blizzard of emotions, akin to gale-force winds sweeping in during an ice storm. They were hard enough to handle separately, but when put together, they were a force of nature.
As much as I tried to calm myself down, I failed miserably. My temper raged as my heart hurt more than it ever had before. I cycled through a full spectrum of emotions—shock, pain, and confusion. Each vied to take over, while none was willing to yield to the other even an inch. That tenuous mixture was too much, ultimately boiling over. Tears streamed down my face as I looked up at the sky, wailing and ranting.
“Why?” I asked.
I yelled out as if there were any chance of getting an answer, although I knew there wasn’t one. It was an irrational act, but what else could be expected during such an unprecedented time? What I was trying to grapple with wasn’t just a profound sense of sadness. I had stared down a chilling scene, one that had left me feeling like my heart had been ripped right out of my chest.
As much as it defied logic, I kept calling out some kind of an answer. “How is this even possible?”
My question echoed in the air, unanswered. By that point, I was completely unraveling. I wanted to curl up into a ball and just send up the white flag.
After taking a few deep breaths, I stared out into the darkness. With my pulse finally starting to slow down, I wondered if maybe I’d be able to get a grip.
That idea was short lived as my sadness gave way to a burgeoning rage that wouldn’t be denied.
“No. This can’t be happening,” I repeated to myself.
I kept saying the words, but it didn’t change the truth. I could try to deny it all I wanted, but it was no use. Jake was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it. The feeling of powerlessness was the most maddening of all.
My rage was unbridled. I couldn’t keep a lid on it or rein it in, no matter how much I tried. It was almost as if it had a mind of its own. My emotions were so raw and painful that I just wanted to make them go away. They were too much to try to juggle all at once. What I needed more than anything right then was relief.
It came in the most surprising of packages. In the end, it was nature that brought me back to reality. Ever since I’d discovered Jake’s body, adrenaline had been coursing through my veins and fueling my emotions. As powerful as adrenaline was, it could only take me so far. There was a point when the weather refused to be denied any longer.
It had reached that point in the night where that was the case. My prolonged exposure to the cold, even with my multiple layers of clothing on, had caught up with me. The chill in the air was so strong that it brought me back to reality. I began shivering uncontrollably as my tears threatened to freeze to my cheek.
Suddenly, I switched into self-preservation mode. I had to shelve my emotions and get back inside as quickly as possible before I turned into an ice pop. When I was safely inside and warmed up, I could try to piece everything together.
Or, so I thought. I entered the building and stood next to the heater, desperate to thaw out. No sooner after I finally regained some semblance of composure, did I spot trouble staring me down at the end of the hallway in the form of the local police detective.
Chapter Six
In my fragile emotional state, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to the police. Frankly, I wasn’t really in the mood to speak with anyone, for that matter, but especially the boys in blue. If I had my druthers, I’d go home, crawl into bed, and cry myself to sleep.
As much as I loathed discussing what I’d discovered with the detective, I knew I couldn’t avoid it. There were questions that needed answering, and as the person who discovered Jake’s body, I held the first key to unearthing the truth. As shocking as it was to come to grips with, my boyfriend’s office was no longer just the home to his private-eye business—it was also a crime scene. And, with all the blood coming from his body, it was clear he hadn’t died from natural causes.
He’d been murdered. Even more, the killer was out there somewhere, completely on the loose. That was a chilling thought—one that Detective Adam Stone had come to address with me. I knew the detective would have preferred to leave me in peace—that the questions he was about to ask me were just part of his job. At the same time, that knowledge didn’t make the situation any easier for me to stomach.
If timing in life was everything, having to talk to an officer of the law while simultaneously trying to come to terms with the fact that the love of my life had been murdered was too much to grapple with at once. Conversely, for the detective, getting his questions answered as fast as possible was crucial.
There was a truism in the investigative world. The best chance of solving any murder case was the first forty-eight hours after the crime occurred. With each additional hour that the investigation stretched on, the chances grew of the case getting cold. So, while I could have easily spent the next two days sobbing uncontrollably, the police needed to spend that time trying to dig up as many leads as possible. That process began with me.
I wish I could tell you that was the first time I’d ever talked to a police detective. In truth,
that was far from the case. Detective Stone’s angular face and square jaw were actually becoming quite a familiar sight to me.
My eyes opened wide as I contemplated how I’d become on a first-name basis with the local police detective. That was certainly something I never thought I’d ever say, but that was just how crazy my life had become of late. I had gone a significant portion of my life without ever having spoken to the authorities. In the last few months, we’d become all too acquainted with each other.
Please allow me to explain. That was not due to any illegal action of my own. I lived my life on the right side of the law. My interaction with the police centered on the sudden and disturbing spike in the local murder rate. With each new homicide case that was opened, I’d stuck my nose in the middle of the detective’s investigations. I know, I know—I’d been worried about Jake putting himself in danger all this time, yet I’d investigated cases myself. The difference was, I’d done all my sleuthing with the aid and firepower of the local authorities.
As for my investigating, sometimes I’d gotten involved because of my insatiable curiosity. Other times, it was to exonerate a friend who had been wrongfully suspected of murder. Suffice it to say, my sleuthing did not go over well with the detective at first. Adam was the kind of broad-shouldered fifty-five-year-old who walked around with a stiff upper lip even during the best of times, so when he caught me snooping around his crime scenes and independently questioning his suspects, he reacted predictably poorly.
My only saving grace was that, despite my distinct lack of professional credentials, in the end, I happened to have an uncanny knack for solving murders. Despite the detective’s initial rebuke of my amateur sleuthing, I had solved three cases in a row. Even a boisterous man such as the detective had a hard time arguing with those kinds of results.
My investigative success aside, after closing the book on my last case a few months ago, I had believed that my days of sleuthing were behind me. Little did I know I’d end up in the middle of a new murder investigation—one that hit more close to home than any that had come before.
Detective Stone knew everything was different this time around. That was why he shelved his typical hard-as-nails, never-showing-a-crack-in-the-armor approach. He addressed me not as a stiff detective, but rather as a friend. There was sympathy and anguish in his voice as he tried to console me.
“I know this isn’t a good time,” Detective Stone said.
My emotions were so raw that I was unable to restrain them. My agony came out. “You’re right. It’s a horrible time.”
Detective Stone looked me deep in the eyes. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
I could tell he wasn’t just saying that. Those were more than hollow words. There was an emotional truth behind them.
While it was refreshing to see that sympathetic side to him, it could only do so much to dull the pain I felt.
“Thank you. This whole day has been like a nightmare—one I can’t seem to wake up from,” I replied.
Detective Stone got choked up. “Unfortunately, I know exactly what you mean.”
When consoling the bereaved, people said things like that all the time. Some did it because they didn’t know what else to say. For others, it came from a place of truth. I knew that, coming from the detective’s mouth, it was more than just a platitude. Grief and tragedy were more common than not in his line of work.
As the detective knew what I was going through, he also knew how difficult it was for me to answer. His last statement hung in the air, begging to be followed up on. I just had a hard time getting the words out. An awkward moment of silence developed as I wrestled with trying to find the right words.
After a few more seconds had passed, the detective decided to break the silence. He continued with his line of thought.
“Tragedy aside, it doesn’t change the fact that I need to talk to you.”
I sighed. My tongue had been doing its best to avoid answering, but there was no way to skirt around the issue anymore. The elephant in the room was waving its trunk around and stomping its paws, making it impossible to be ignored any further.
“I know you do,” I said.
“I hate to do this to you right now, but I’ll try to make it quick. I have to get a statement from you about what happened here.”
I already knew what he was going to ask. What time was it when I found Jake? What condition was he in? Was he already unconscious when I got here? Had told me anything before slipping away? Did I see or hear anyone outside fleeing from the scene? Did I know anyone with reason to want my boyfriend dead?
The questions were always the same, no matter the case. I’d asked them myself many times in the past. The thing was, back then, I’d always been the one asking the questions. I’d never had the roles reversed on me, staring down nothing but grief, knowing each answer was more debilitating than the last.
I clammed up, even more so than before, only not just out of anguish. Suddenly, something more was at play as I became lost in my thoughts. A new feeling in my gut began forming. I couldn’t quite make sense of it yet, but I knew something interesting was brewing.
While I tried to sort out what was going on inside my body, the detective’s focus was on how inward my attention had turned.
“Andrea, stay with me. I need you out here,” he said.
Detective Stone succeeded in getting my attention, although only briefly. Before he was able to get another word out, a number of things dawned on me in quick succession. The first of which really struck me the hardest. There was no disputing that, regardless of my mental state, the case was going to go on without me. Life stopped for no one, no matter how dire the circumstances. That was the way it always was and always would be.
So, while my feet felt like they were stuck in cement as the world collapsed around me, everyone else would carry on like things were business as usual. Jake’s murder needed solving, and once the detective was done with me, he’d get straight to investigating. That was where I felt torn. As much as I wanted Jake’s killer to be brought to justice, I wasn’t confident that Detective Stone could find the perpetrator alone.
After all, if anyone else had been the victim, I would have been joining in on the case. When I threw in the fact that I had outsmarted the detective during the last three investigations, it painted a disillusioning picture in my head that I could rely on Detective Stone to bring justice to this case.
At the same time, I was a complete mess. While that fact was not lost on me, neither was the knowledge that when it came to finding Jake’s killer, there was only one opportunity to do this right. So, even though tending to my feelings seemed like the most important thing to do in the short run, ultimately, nothing was more crucial than justice being served.
Unfortunately, I was a woman of two minds, and they were both warring with each other. It was time to call a cease-fire. This was too big and important to risk messing up. As I honed in on that, my emotions suddenly calmed, and I got a razor-sharp focus. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do.
The detective had been left hanging for too long. He tried to get an answer out of me once again. “Andrea, I really need to get a statement from you.”
An unexpected resolve came to my face as my emotions spoke for me. “You will, detective. A definitive one. Like, leave this to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to find Jake’s killer,” I said.
Up until that point, the detective had been very kind to me and accommodated my wildly erratic emotions.
All that changed after my last statement. He shook his head and stood firm. “No. That’s not a good idea.”
“Detective, I wasn’t asking. I was telling you. This investigation is too important--”
He wouldn’t let me finish my sentence.
“You’re right. It’s too important to let your emotions cloud the truth.”
I was heavy in denial. “My emotions have nothing to do with this.”
&nb
sp; “That’s where you’re wrong again. Your emotions have everything to do with this.”
I wanted to put a quick end to it. “Detective, we’ve argued about this topic in the past. Do I have to remind you how that turned out?”
“No.”
“Good, then we’re clear.”
“Not so fast. If this was any other case, I’d agree with you. But this is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.”
I groaned as my frustration boiled over. “I’m not in the mood to argue with you about this anymore.”
“Andrea, I’m not the enemy here. I’m looking out for you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
He stared me down and tried to reason with me. “Yes. Your boyfriend was just murdered. You’re not in a position for rational thought, much less to conduct an investigation.”
It was hard to dispute that. At the same time, I had a valid argument of my own.
“Even so, we both know I can help solve this.”
It was then that I saw a brand-new side to the detective—one I didn’t know existed. He pleaded with me. “Please don’t do this.”
I was beyond reason. Stubborn to a fault. I didn’t relent in the least. “Nothing you’re going to say will stop me. So, unless you’re planning on arresting me for interfering with your investigation, don’t waste your breath.”
He valued his breath less than I did. “I’m not saying this as a detective. I’m saying this as your friend. Let me handle this case.”
I tried to argue with him, but he wouldn’t let me, looking at me with pleading eyes once again.
“Please. Just stay out of this one.”
That time, I didn’t just hear his voice. He was like the voice of reason. I listened to his words. That, combined with the look in his eyes, swayed me. As I came down from my emotional high, I realized that as much as I hated to admit it, he was right.
When I stepped back, I saw the lunacy in my words. My adrenaline had done the talking for me. As I settled down, I changed my tune and gave him the statement he was looking for. Shortly after, the detective drove me home. As he dropped me off at my house, he assured me he’d do everything he could to bring Jake’s killer to justice. I knew it was more than just lip service. He meant it from the bottom of his heart.
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