In terms of kinky? Nothing.
Actually, you sucking me off after I killed someone might tie for first place. I just never fantasized about that before.
Besides violating women with your gun, what else have you fantasized about.
Honestly. This is kind of funny. Fucking my teacher. Always a big one in high school.
Did it ever come true?
Nope. Are you going to make another one of my fantasy’s come true?
It’s summer. I’m not teaching right now.
Liar.
I’m not lying.
Hello?
Fine, I’m sort of lying. I start class on Monday.
I just had a call. And I know.
How do you know?
I gotta go B.
No! Tell me. How did you know?
Well about a month ago I started having these trust issues. Let’s just say I had the problem rectified.
I really do have to go. I’d talk to you all night if I could, but I’m dealing with work shit. I’ll text you later. 3:42pm
Eighteen
Keith sat at his desk catching up on some much needed paperwork. He’d been out of the office all week with Carter, interviewing anyone and everyone who might be able to shed some light on the details of the night, but they were no closer to finding out what happened. The only information to be a constant truth among witnesses was that Melanie and Jason were fighting all night. Not a good sign. The only positive outlook to Jason’s benefit was Melanie’s mother. She didn’t believe for one second he was the person who murdered her daughter. That says a lot coming from a distraught parent. She told them Jason and Melanie were inseparable and she’d never seen him do anything to Melanie that didn’t come from the best intentions. Motherly instinct, she told them. Mother’s know what’s best for their children and that’s what Jason was for Melanie.
Keith was just finishing typing the last deposition when his secretary popped in her head, lightly knocking on his office door.
“Mr. Nichols, a courier just dropped this for you. It’s the autopsy report on Melanie Rice.” She walked forward and laid the ten-page report on the desk in front of him. He glanced down at it, but continued to type, eager to have the depositions finished.
“Thank you Jan. I’m almost done here with the reports. I sent them to the printer. Would you mind getting them filed for me?”
“No problem sir.”
Jan retreated the way she came as he hit save and print on the final doc. It had taken him all day to get everything typed and he was looking forward to finally being done and going home to spend some much needed time with Annabel. They hadn’t seen much of each other over the past couple weeks and he felt like she was drifting away. They hadn’t even had sex since that first night she came home from New York. Even then it felt like she was just going through the motions, her usual passion hidden away somewhere.
Leaning back in his chair he picked up the autopsy report and began reading through its long length. The first page consisted of the medical examiner’s opinion paragraph where he declared the death that of homicidal violence and then an identification section commenting on the initial arrival of the body. It continued on to declare the official cause of death, asphyxia through throttling; in layman’s terms, strangulation. It was all stuff he knew, but kept flipping through the additional pages of medical jargon.
EXTERNAL APPEARANCE:
The body is that of a normally developed 125-pound black woman whose appearance is consistent with the given age of nineteen. The curly, black hair measures approximately seven inches in length. Each ear is pierced. A three-inch scratch is located on her upper right bicep. Bruising mars both sides of the neck consistent with the findings in the injury paragraph.
EVIDENCE OF INJURY:
ASPHYXIA: A superficial abraded mark, dried and orange in color marks the left side of the neck approximately ten inches below the top of the head. On the right side of the neck is a brown abraded area 2 ¼ inches in width.
INTERNAL EXAMINATION:
NECK: Contains dried tissues and no deep hemorrhaging, however, there is a subcutaneous hemorrhage on the strap muscle.
RESPIRATORY SYSTEM: Well-expanded lungs with average amounts of fluid.
GASTROINTESTINAL SYSTEM: The esophagus is free of injury. The stomach does not contain gastric contents.
GENITOURINARY SYSTEM: The kidneys weigh in at 130 grams. The bladder is urine free. The vagina and anus have not suffered any form of sexual assault, but the pelvic organs are consistent with a first trimester pregnancy. Approximately ten weeks.
Keith almost dropped the stack of papers and had to reread that last sentence. First trimester pregnancy. How the hell could Jason have failed to mention his girlfriend was over two months pregnant? If he was screwed before, now he was fucked. Now the state prosecutor had an official motive for murder.
“Shit,” he yelled out and tossed the papers back on his desk, letting them splay in all directions.
He reached for the phone on his desk, but then thought better. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with Jason over the phone. Standing he loosened his tie and pulled it over his head, letting it drop into his chair. He was feeling short of breath. “Cancel anything else I have this afternoon,” he told his secretary as he slammed his office door behind him. “I have a situation to deal with.”
Keith blazed through the office and to the parking garage in a rush. He couldn’t wait to confront Jason and find out why he never mentioned something so important. If he knew from the beginning he could have spun it, made Jason out to be a distraught father to be who just lost a baby and his girlfriend. It was too late for that now. The prosecution would be all over this.
His tires squealed and swerved as he exited the garage, dialing Carter’s number and let it connect through the hands free set. Carter barely got in a greeting before Keith started yelling. “She was pregnant. Fucking pregnant and that little asshole never told us.”
“What? Who’s pregnant?” Carter asked, caught off guard. “What are you talking about?”
“Melanie,” Keith said clearly. “The autopsy report came back today. Ten weeks pregnant. Do you know what that means? It means we’re both screwed. We won’t win this. Not with a bomb drop like that. Not unless we find out something huge.” Keith raced down the freeway, his engine growling as it nearly hit a hundred.
“Calm down. Just fucking calm down. Do you think he did it? Do you honestly think he did it?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know,” he wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, brushing away the drops of sweat starting to form even though his AC was on high blast. This was his big case. He couldn’t afford to lose. The stakes were high and so was the stress. “Annabel thinks he’s innocent. I trust her instinct.”
“Annabel? You talk to your wife about the case details. Isn’t that illegal? Client-lawyer confidentiality and all that.”
“I haven’t told her anything Jason didn’t tell her himself. I had her do a psych analysis and she thinks he’s innocent, but it doesn’t matter what she thinks, what I think. It’s all about the evidence, and right now we have nothing to run with except the testimony from Melanie’s mother. That’s all.”
“That may be all we have for now, but if he’s innocent, we’ll find more. If it’s out there, I’ll find it. I have a hunch I’m working on. I don’t want to tell you just yet, but give me a couple days. I think you’re stressing out for no reason.”
Keith appreciated Carter’s support, but there was no way he was going to stop stressing. He hadn’t stopped since he picked up the case and probably wouldn’t until it was long over, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hide the stress better and act like a normal, confident defender. “Fine. You keep on with your hunch. I’m going to talk to Jason.”
“Good. I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t need to. I can handle this. I’ll tell you what he says.”
“Too late buddy, I’m already here.
Jason’s part of my hunch. I’ve been scoping his place out all day.”
Keith pulled down the block and parked behind a black, S-Class Mercedes sitting across the street from Jason’s one-story home. The car fit in well with the rest of the luxury vehicles, although it was the only one parked in the street, and Keith had a suspicion of whom it belonged to. If on cue to his thoughts the driver’s side door opened and Carter emerged.
“Nice car,” Keith praised, wondering why they had been driving around in his car all week when they could have been driving that. Keith normally thought the best of his car, but not in comparison to Carter’s Mercedes.
“Thanks. I like her. Tiffany’s one of a kind.”
“Tiffany? You named your car?”
“Sure did. She’s my baby. Had to have a name.”
If Keith had a car like that he’d probably name it too. He shrugged off his jealousy as they walked up the pathway to Jason’s house and knocked on the door. He had more important things to think about than cars.
Jason answered after a minute of waiting and Keith walked in without invitation, pushing the autopsy papers into his chest to move him aside.
“Come on in,” he said with sarcasm. “What’s this?” Pulling the papers away from his chest he looked down to read them.
“It’s an autopsy report on Melanie. Anything you want to tell us?” Keith asked, trying to keep his cool.
Without responding Jason kept reading, turning page after page.
“Why don’t you go ahead and skip to page five, section four.”
Jason hesitated, but then did as asked. Confusion was written all over his face and for the first time Keith thought of the possibility that maybe Jason didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t tell them because he didn’t know there was anything to tell. If that was the case, reading about it on paper would destroy him, but Keith needed to see his reaction firsthand to make sure he truly was an innocent bystander. He got his answer thirty seconds later when the papers dropped out of Jason’s hands and Sfell to the floor.
“She was pregnant?” he asked looking up toward the ceiling in an effort to compose himself. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” he whispered over and over, his eyes reddening and filling with water. “She never told me, but it all makes sense now. She stopped wanting to go out. She wouldn’t drink anymore. God I’m such a fucking asshole!” he screamed and punched the wall, inflicting a set of bruised knuckles, and sat down to cradle his injured hand. “Why didn’t she tell me? Why? I would have taken care of her. I would have married her.”
“Maybe she didn’t want your pity,” Carter spoke up and Keith glared at him for his rude words. “Maybe she wanted you to marry her because you wanted to be with her, not because she was pregnant.”
“I loved her. I did want to be with her.”
Something about the way his voice raised an octave when he was trying to convince them gave Keith pause.
“We were going to have a baby?” he asked as if it were a question. Like his mind just couldn’t grasp the concept.
They stayed quiet. Let him sit there curled up with his knees against his chest, trying to make sense of everything.
“You think I did it now don’t you? That the young, rich kid found out his poor, black girlfriend was pregnant and decided to kill her.”
“That’s not what we think,” said Keith. “But that’s how the prosecutor’s going to spin it. It’s what I would do.”
“Well they’re wrong. Ask anyone. My parents, my friends. I’ve always talked about having kids; wanting a family one day.”
“Yeah, one day, but maybe not today. Maybe not with her,” Carter stated bluntly. “Your character witnesses aren’t going to save you. What’ll save you is if you start telling us the truth.”
“Carter! What the fuck’s wrong with you man,” Keith chastised. He was pushing the kid too hard. His girlfriend was murdered and now he found out his unborn baby died too and he very likely could go down for both their deaths. It was not the time to accuse him of lying. Carter didn’t push again. He took a couple steps back and leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the room, crossing his arms over his chest.
In an effort to calm the tension Keith turned back to Jason, trying to console him as best he could. “I’m sorry about Carter. He’s just under a lot of stress. We all are,” he added as he felt Carter staring dagger eyes toward him. “But he’s right. Your character witnesses aren’t going to be able to help you. We’re going to need something more, but we’ll find it. I promise.” Keith didn’t like making promises he couldn’t keep, but the words fell from his lips without thinking them through.
“I’ve never done drugs before,” Jason said out of nowhere. “I might drink a lot, but never drugs. Not even pot. The doctor said I had enough heroin in my system that I never should have woken up. I just can’t believe I would go my whole life never doing drugs and then one drunken night decide to do so much heroin that I almost kill myself. It doesn’t seem possible. The doctor didn’t check my arms, but I did. No marks. You inject heroin don’t you?”
Keith looked up at Carter in question who was now meandering over toward a framed photo in the hall, but met his gaze just the same. He’d clearly heard what Jason said and looked confused. Keith was confused too. He always assumed heroin must have gone hand in hand with the parties Jason attended. He never thought for a second there was a chance Jason didn’t do the drug.
“Why are you just telling us this now?” Keith asked.
“Because I thought it might help,” he shrugged. “I believed it at first. Why would I have heroin in my system if I didn’t do it, but the more I think about it, the more it doesn’t seem like something I would do. No matter how drunk I was.”
They left the house shortly after Jason’s epiphany. It was a small lead, but still something. Maybe someone drugged him; wanted Melanie alone and needed Jason out of the picture.
“Can you take heroin orally,” Keith asked Carter as they walked back to their cars. “Is it possible it was slipped in his drink?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t think it absorbs the same. You’d have to down a lot of it to have any sort of effect. Seems like an expensive way to drug someone when you can just slip them a roofie.”
That made sense. If someone were trying to drug Jason, a roofie would be the best option. Who slips people heroin? Unless… “What if someone wasn’t trying to drug him? What if they were trying to kill him and make it look like an overdose? If it’s not absorbed into your system as much can you still OD?”
“If it’s not all absorbed I don’t see how you would,” Carter said, leaning back against the hood of his car.
“Well how much would you have to take orally to be the equivalent of taking it through a needle?”
“Keith, I like how you think I know everything, but I have no clue. I’ll look into it though, okay?”
“Yeah okay. I was just talking out loud. It is kind of strange don’t you think? If he’s never done drugs before, why go for something like heroin? Seems like a big jump. I just feel like we’re on to something with this.”
“Of course you do. It’s the only thing we have to go off of right now, but do you really think he’s telling the truth? That he’s never done drugs before?”
“I don’t know. We can test him I guess, but why would he lie? He brought it up.”
Carter stood from the car, walking closer to Keith as not to be overheard. “It wouldn’t be the first thing he’s lied about.”
“What are you getting at? What else has he lied about? Did you find something out? Is that what that was in there? When you told him he needed to start telling us the truth.”
“I haven’t found anything out. Yet.” Carter ensured. “But I’m good at reading people. He’s holding something back. Like when he talks about his girlfriend. I don’t think he was as in love with her as he claims.”
“Yeah, I caught on to that too. You think there’s someone else?”
“That’s what I�
�m trying to find out, but I’d bet money there is. Either she had someone on the side or he did, but my money’s on him. Why protect the dead girlfriend’s lover?”
“Unless he feels like if he mentions she was having an affair it would give him more motive to kill her.”
“I only see that scenario working out if he actually did kill her. Otherwise why not hand over another potential suspect?”
“True. So you think Jason had another girlfriend? Someone on the side?”
Carter nodded.
“And you think she’s the one who did it?”
“Yup. Jealousy can turn anyone into a psychopath. I think Jason’s protecting her or he’s really that naïve and isn’t even considering the possibility she could have done it.”
“Interesting theory. How are you going to prove it?”
“By doing something that’s not admissible in court.”
“Which is?” Keith pressed.
“I’m going to bug his house.”
“And how are you going to do that? Am I going to have to represent you next on breaking and entering charges?”
“Nope. I just did.”
“Just did? Wait, what?” Keith motioned back to the house. “Just now? When we were inside?”
Carter smiled and raised his brows.
“How?”
“Well while you were babying him, I was able to walk around and hide them everywhere I could get. Behind pictures, in a plant, under the table. Every time I moved back in your vicinity I’d say a dickhead thing so you’d both assume I was there the whole time and then move on.”
“I like your style Young. Let me know if you pick up on anything.”
Keith started walking to his car when Carter called out behind him. “Hey. You want to go get a drink? You look like you could use a little wind down.”
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