Bitter Past

by Caroline Fardig

  Since he showed up at my office, I’d been trying to figure out if this surprise lunch had been about apologizing or winning my business or seeing me again. His invitation to dinner finally clarified it for me.

  “Yes, I’d love to.” I hadn’t been on a date in months, aside from a random hook-up or two this summer.

  Breaking into one of his mega-watt grins, he reached out and took one of my hands in his. “How about tomorrow night?”

  A tingle shot through me at his touch. “Tomorrow is good.”

  He ran his thumb over the back of my hand before releasing it. “It’s a date.”

  ***

  When I got home later that evening, I had another surprise visitor. My stepdad’s truck was parked in front of my house. Excited, I hurried in to see him.

  “Hey, David!” I exclaimed, ignoring Trixie’s welcome and heading straight for my stepdad. He was sitting on the floor with Rachel and Nathan, eating pizza and building tall towers out of colorful wooden blocks. He got up to give me a big bear hug.

  “Hello, Ellie. How are you holding up?” he asked.

  David Collins was as close to family as Rachel and I had. He was the best thing that had ever happened to us, and he loved us as if we were his own children. Our mother got clean because of him, but sadly it didn’t last long. They had only been married two years when she fell back off the wagon. He tried desperately to get her help, but she wouldn’t hear of it. One night during a drug-fueled rage, she drew a knife on him. She didn’t end up hurting him, but it was the last straw. He called the police, assuming my mother would be arrested and he would be allowed to take care of Rachel and me. But since we had no blood relatives (our grandmother had passed away by then) and were minors, we were put into the system and had to go live with a foster family for six months. At fourteen, I was old enough to be angry about the situation, and as a direct result, my teenage rebellion began. David was heartbroken. My mother divorced him, so there was nothing he could do to help us. She got clean again, sort of, and regained custody of us. David did all he could to stay in our lives, sending us cards and gifts on holidays and calling us often. He even paid for part of my college tuition and let me live with him and his family during my summer breaks. He has been a wonderful grandfather to Nate.

  “I’ve been better,” I replied.

  David let me go and gestured to the coffee table. “I brought pizza. Pizza makes everything better.”

  Laughing, I joined them on the floor, giving Nate a kiss on top of the head. “It does.”

  “I couldn’t believe it when I opened up the morning paper and saw your name. Truth be told, I was relieved when you decided to quit the homicide business,” he said, worry evident in his eyes.

  “I know. And it’s strange to be on the other side. Really though, except for the reporters hounding me, it’s not such a big deal.”

  “You found a d-e-a-d b-o-d-y, Sis,” Rachel said, spelling as we often did to keep Nate’s little ears from hearing our adult words. “That’s a big deal.”

  I shrugged, reaching for a slice of pizza. “It’s not like I haven’t seen one before.”

  David and Rachel both stared at me like I’d sprouted a second head.

  “I’m not trying to make light of the situation. I’m just saying the sight of it didn’t upset me. What’s hard is to not be able to talk about it with anyone.”

  Taking my hand and giving it a squeeze, David said, “Well, if you do ever need anyone to talk to about anything, you know I’m just a phone call away.”

  “I know.” I smiled. To take the heat off myself, I said, “Hey, David, did Rach tell you she’s seeing a new guy?”

  Rachel blushed. “It’s nothing serious. We’ve been out for coffee and lunch a few times.”

  “Good for you,” David said, giving her a pat on the shoulder.

  The block tower Nate had been building went tumbling down, and he started to cry. David scooped him up and gave him a big hug, then helped him rebuild the tower. I could read the look on Rachel’s face, because she was feeling the exact same thing I was. David was an extraordinary person, and when he was around, all was right with the world.

  After a while, we said our good-byes, and I started getting ready for bed. It was only eight o’clock, and Rachel was just starting to wrestle Nate into bed, but I was exhausted. While I was changing clothes, my phone rang. It was Detective Baxter.

  “Hello?” I said, thinking nothing good could come from a late-night call from the cops.

  “Hi, Ellie, this is Nick.” He added, “Nick Baxter.”

  Chuckling, I replied, “Yes, I think I remember you.”

  “Right. I have something I want to run by you. Would you be able to meet me for a drink tonight?”

  I was tired, but intrigued. “Okay. Where?”

  “O’Loughlin’s Bar. Are you familiar with it?”

  O’Loughlin’s was the cop hangout in Noblesville. I was familiar with it, having had a particularly bad incident there one time with Jason Sterling. “Yes, but—”

  “Great. Come on over. I’m already here.”

  He hung up before I could reply.

  O’Loughlin’s was an old bar in one of the old buildings on one of the old downtown streets of Noblesville. I hadn’t been there in years, but the place hadn’t changed at all. Law enforcement personnel, from rookies to retirees, packed the house. The place was loud and animated, but you could feel an odd, somber undercurrent of depression radiating from men and women who had seen too much brutality and hate.

  Detective Baxter waved at me from a booth near the back. I weaved through the sea of faces I recognized, nodding and smiling as I went.

  When I sat down across from Baxter, he smiled. “Thanks for meeting me. I didn’t realize how late it was until after I called. Hope I’m not keeping you up. You probably didn’t sleep much last night, did you?”

  “I’m good,” I lied.

  He waved a waitress over and ordered us two beers. Once she left, his face grew serious. “I bet you’re wondering why I was so cryptic over the phone. If I had told you the real reason I asked to meet with you, I was afraid you’d say no.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Shifting in my seat, I asked, “Why did you want to see me?”

  He reached into the messenger bag he’d brought and produced a manila envelope. He took out some gruesome crime scene photos and set them out in front of me. “I need your expertise. There was a robbery that went bad two weeks ago at a gas station up in Cicero.”

  Of course I couldn’t pass up a look at an actual crime scene, so I perused the photos. “I heard about it on the news.”

  “It was a mess.” He pointed to a man in one of the photos. “This is Ronnie Jenkins, my dead shooter. He and the store owner got into a gunfight. Jenkins took a bullet to the chest and a through and through to the neck. He died en route to the hospital. The store owner took one to the face. He’s alive, but he can’t remember a damn thing that happened and can barely speak. The one and only working surveillance camera positioned on the front door showed another man with a gun come into the store with Jenkins, so we think he had a partner. We haven’t been able to ID the guy so we can’t question him.” Frustrated, Baxter ran a hand through his dark blonde hair. “Durant’s assistant was sick that day, so he processed the scene alone, and personally, I’ve never seen someone eff anything up so bad. He couldn’t even find the bullet that went through my dead guy’s neck.”

  Nodding, I said, “I’m not surprised. He’s an idiot.”

  “Yes. Which is why I’ve asked the Sheriff…if I can try to persuade you to consult on some of our tougher cases.”

  “Why would she think I’d want to do that?” She knew exactly why I’d quit.

  He sighed. “I’m struggling here. The whole department is.”

  “So fire Durant.”

  “You know who his mother is, don’t you?”

  “No. I made it my business to stay out of Durant’s business.”


  “His mommy is Judge Ferguson. She uses her maiden name.”

  I choked on my beer. “What? The Dragon Lady is his mom? Now I understand.”

  Judge Ferguson was a hard-ass, and it was like pulling teeth to try to get a warrant out of her. She would yell at you during a trial if she thought you were trying to pull any shenanigans in her courtroom. Firing her incompetent son would not be worth the wrath of the Dragon Lady.

  “So you’ll help me?”

  I gave him an apologetic smile. “I can’t. With my classes and the new research facility…my plate is full right now.”

  Baxter wasn’t backing down. “You’d of course be paid for your time.”

  “It’s not about that. I just…can’t.”

  “How about a one-time shot tonight? Help me with this one case.”

  “I…” I began, unable to come up with a good excuse why not.

  “You’re already out. Come on. Please come to the scene with me.”

  I tensed. I didn’t know if I could handle two crime scenes in two days. More than anything, I didn’t want to be pulled back into the real world of criminalistics. I was perfectly happy in my ivory tower. But Baxter was giving me such a pleading look, complete with puppy dog eyes, that it was hard to resist him and the opportunity to peruse just one more actual crime scene. Plus, there would be no dead body this time.

  “Fine,” I relented. “But only tonight.”

  Already sliding out of the booth, he grinned. “I’ll take what I can get. I’ll drive.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  It only took ten minutes to arrive at the rundown gas station in Cicero. Detective Baxter let us into the convenience store building and went to the back to turn on the lights.

  When he returned, he said, “The owner is incapacitated, and the staff is unwilling to help run the place, so it’s closed indefinitely. The good news is that our crime scene has been preserved.”

  I took in my surroundings. For the most part, it was a regular convenience store filled with snack foods and other items one would need on a road trip. The unmistakable difference was the giant pools of dried blood on the floor in front of and behind the cash register. The wall of cigarette packs behind the counter was splattered and smeared with blood, some of the packs crushed from the store owner crashing against them when he was shot. A freestanding wire basket of candy bars was overturned in front of the counter, its contents mixing unappetizingly with the blood pool.

  Baxter handed me a pair of gloves and donned one himself. “Do you have a particular place you want to start?”

  “I usually like to take in the whole scene first, but since it’s already been processed, we can start by recreating the incident. You be the owner, and I’ll be the robber. What was his name again?”

  He got behind the counter. “Jenkins. He was standing two feet to the left of where you are.”

  I moved accordingly, making a gun out of my thumb, forefinger, and middle finger and leveling it at Baxter. “Here we go. This is a stick-up.”

  Baxter rolled his eyes. “You think he said, ‘This is a stick-up’? This is the twenty-first century.”

  “Fine. Um… Dude, this is a stick-up…yo,” I said, trying for a straight face.

  Bursting out laughing, Baxter shook his head. “You’re way more fun than Durant, too.”

  “Damn right I am. Now pull yourself together, Detective. Who do we think shot first?”

  “I would say the store owner. Jenkins’s shot seemed like a mistake. His bullet entered through the store owner’s chin and exited through his cheek. Jenkins, on the other hand, took one square in the chest. I don’t think anyone could have centered a shot so perfectly after getting popped in the face.”

  I nodded. “That sounds like a good theory. Okay, shoot me.”

  “Bang.”

  “I’m falling back, cracking off a shot that catches you in the face.” The detective and I mimicked the motions as we described them.

  “On my way down, is there any way I can get off a shot that goes through your neck?” he asked.

  “What’s the angle?” I asked.

  He straightened up, pointing to the right side of his neck, near the middle. “It went through here.” He then pointed to the left side of his neck, also near the middle. “And came out here.”

  “So it went straight through horizontally, basically right under his ears?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought for a moment, getting back into my shooting position, facing directly at Baxter. “How could I take a bullet to the chest…” Trailing off, I pointed at my chest. “And be knocked back…” I looked behind me, my mind still trying to visualize how this could have happened. I turned my attention back to Baxter. “He would have fallen straight back, right? I don’t think he would have been able to turn his body to the side in order for that bullet to go through the way it did.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought. And to top it off, we never found a second shell casing from the Colt .380 the store owner was holding.”

  “Where was Jenkins’s partner in crime during all this?”

  Baxter smiled. “Where do you think?”

  Realization dawning, I pointed to my right. “He was over there shooting Jenkins.”

  “Bingo. Jenkins was a known dealer, and word on the street is he had a falling out with the leader of one of the most dangerous drug gangs in Indy.”

  “So this was a hit, masquerading as a robbery,” I surmised.

  He came out from behind the counter. “That’s what my gut says, but I have no evidence. That’s why I need you.” Looking around the store helplessly, he said, “Find my evidence.”

  I got back into my position one more time. “I get shot here.” I touched the right side of my neck. “The bullet passes through and comes out here.” I touched the left side of my neck. Swiveling my head to my left, I pointed in the direction I was looking. “That means the bullet is somewhere over there.”

  Baxter and I started moving from the spot that Jenkins dropped in the direction of our presumed trajectory of the bullet. In the middle of our imaginary line, there was a long shelving unit filled with canned and boxed goods, none of which seemed to be disturbed. We began pulling items off the shelves, inspecting them and the metal shelves behind them for bullet fragments. At the far end of the unit, I came across a dried brown substance on one of the can lids on a middle shelf. The metal shelving had tiny holes for air circulation, and when I looked underneath the shelf above, I found the same brown substance caked in the air holes. Calling Baxter over, I peered at the upper shelf, pushing the front two cans of chili aside. Hiding at the back of the shelf was a can of chili with a telltale bullet hole in one side, but no exit hole.

  Elated, Baxter exclaimed, “That’s it! We found it!” Getting out his camera, he snapped several photos. When he was finished, he reached into his camera bag and produced a paper sack. “Would you like to do the honors, since you’re such a whiz at bagging and tagging?”

  I shook my head. “No, a civilian handling evidence would cause all kinds of trouble during the trial. You do it. You don’t even have to tell anyone I was here.”

  “Well, if you’re a paid consultant, then you’re an official part of the department.”

  “But I don’t want to be a paid consultant.”

  He placed the can of chili in the sack, sealed it with red evidence tape, and scribbled on the evidence tag. “I happen to think we make a pretty good team. What do I have to do to convince you? At least let me buy you another drink.”

  “Fine. One more drink. And then we’re done.”

  ***

  One more drink turned into one drink too many. I ended up laughing and snorting beer out my nose at Baxter’s impersonation of Judge Ferguson.

  “Stop, please stop. You’re killing me,” I choked out in between laughing fits.

  “I’m just getting started. How about another round?” he asked, starting to slur his words.

  “I think you’ve had enough
, Detective Baxter.”

  “I think you should start calling me Nick, Ellie.”

  “Okay, Nick, I think you’ve had enough.”

  “I think you’ve had enough, too,” interjected Jason Sterling, who had snuck up to our table when we weren’t looking.

  “Piss off, Sterling,” I said, frowning.

  Sterling ignored me and addressed his partner. “Now I know why you had to run off so suddenly tonight. Chasing a piece of tail, Nicky?”

  “Hey!” Baxter yelled, his indignation fueled by too much alcohol. “Ellie is not a piece of tail. Apologize, you dick.”

  Turning to me, Sterling sneered, “Ellie, I’m sorry…that the last time I saw you in here, you were taking a ride on the Sterling Express in the men’s restroom. Forgive me if I assumed you didn’t come here for any other reason than to hook up.”

  Enraged, I lunged at Sterling, but Baxter snapped out of his drunken stupor in time to grab me before my fist made contact with Sterling’s face.

  “That was out of line, Sterling. Get the hell out of here,” growled Baxter.

  Sterling smirked at us and swaggered off toward the bar.

  I pulled away from Baxter and grabbed my purse. “I have to go.”

  He stepped in front of me. “Neither of us can drive.”

  “I can walk. It’s not too far to my house.”

  “I’ll walk you home.”

  “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” I turned to go, embarrassed and wishing for this night to be over.

  Baxter followed me out of the bar and down the street. I didn’t slow down, so he jogged to catch up with me. We walked in silence for a while. I had no idea what to say to him after Sterling’s bombshell about our unfortunate men’s room tryst.

  “I’m sorry about what Sterling said. He’s a jackass,” said Baxter.

  “No shit. He’s never going let me live it down. It was a stupid mistake. We were celebrating one night after we’d solved a big case. I didn’t mean for it to happen…”

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

  “I want to make it clear that the only reason it ever would have happened with Sterling was that I was falling down drunk. That, and I tend to have horrible taste in men.”