by E. C. Diskin
“I’m thinking someone snuck into the house, grabbed the gun, shot the parents, and then turned the place upside down. That doesn’t sound like the actions of a stranger to me.”
Hackett knew this was what he’d do, immediately start looking at the girls, even though someone had already been convicted of the crime.
“In fact, what if it wasn’t even really a robbery but staged to look like one?” Bishop continued to scroll through the documents online. “This file is for shit.”
“But they got the guy.”
“They got a guy. A guy who was pawning their stuff in a town thirty minutes away. He said he’d found it under a viaduct. What else did they have on him?”
Hackett abandoned his own case notes and stood behind Bishop, reading the screen over his shoulder. “His fingerprints on a water glass,” he said, pointing toward the screen with some satisfaction. “Guy proclaimed innocence but his alibi was another junkie. No credibility.”
“A water glass? What, killing people makes you parched?”
“How else do you explain them being there?”
Bishop shook his head and continued to scroll. “No confession. No witness. Dammit. The wife of the guy even said he didn’t have a car. She said he sometimes disappeared for days, but she’d always find him under the viaduct with the other drug addicts. He never left town as far as she knew. They didn’t even have a logical explanation for how he’d get to Buchanan to commit the murders and get back up to St. Joe with the stuff. Seems to me he may have simply been an easy scapegoat. I don’t know. Maybe it was a faulty fingerprinting.”
Hackett returned to his desk. “Grace was seventeen years old, and she and Lisa both had solid alibis. And they certainly didn’t have a connection to the guy who was convicted. He was some forty-year-old drug addict.”
“If I’m right though, and this murder has actually not been solved, the murderer knew exactly where to find the gun and entered quietly. That means the kids should have been prime suspects. You’ll see this more in your career, Hackett, but there’s pressure to solve a case. Community pressure, sometimes political pressure. Now, I don’t know squat about the guys over in the Buchanan Police Department, and I know I’m not from around here, but I’m guessing they have the same pressure facing every department I’ve ever known. No one likes to have these kinds of crimes go unsolved. Makes them feel unsafe, makes them stop trusting that law enforcement will protect them.”
“Are we getting any pressure about this case?” Hackett asked, unable to hide the accusation in his tone.
“You trying to say something?”
His emotions were taking over. “I just feel like we keep circling back here. We’ve had some interesting leads, but you seem hell-bent on going after Grace. Now you’re unearthing an old case, a solved case, and pointing fingers at Grace.”
Bishop sat back and stared at him. “You’d better watch that tone, kid. Let’s remember who has experience between us, shall we? I’m not ignoring anything.”
“Maybe you are. Maybe you’re determined to pin this on Grace because . . .” He stopped himself.
“What? You got something to say, say it.”
“Nothing.”
Bishop looked around the small station. No one else was in view. He leaned forward anyway and lowered his tone. “You think this is ’cause of what happened back in Detroit?”
Hackett didn’t know what he was talking about. He just thought that maybe Bishop’s personal life, his own distractions, made him want to solve the case quickly, too quickly.
“Well, it’s not. I’ve just learned from my mistakes, rookie. Don’t ignore the obvious. And if we’re gonna point some fingers, I’d say you’re the one who seems hell-bent on proving it wasn’t Grace Abbott. I think you’d better check yourself.” He tossed his pen and went to the break room.
Was he right? Was it his judgment that was too clouded, too emotional, too attached to Grace’s innocence, or was it Bishop, too determined to find her guilty? He tried to think methodically, to take out his feelings and focus on the facts. She wasn’t happy but she hadn’t left Cahill. She’d gotten engaged. She’d hit a tree. He pictured her then, sitting in the wreckage, the shards of glass, her head smashed, when just a few days earlier he’d looked into those beautiful eyes, felt her soft hand in his . . . His thoughts were falling back into a ditch of emotion. “Fuck!” he said. He wasn’t objective. He wasn’t sure he could be. But there was evidence that made others look bad. Flynn, Jacks, whoever was in those photos, that casino girl. How could they just hone in on one suspect so quickly? But fighting with Bishop wasn’t going to help anyone.
When Bishop returned with his coffee, Hackett stood. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest anything.”
Bishop gave him a light punch on the arm before returning to his seat. “No worries, rookie. We’re on the same side here. Let’s just remember that.”
He faked a smile. “Have you heard from Cahill’s mother? I was just thinking about what you said about pressure. You’d think she’d be worrying about whether we’d solved this case.”
“I haven’t, surprisingly. She was certainly anxious to get his body from the ME so she could have a proper funeral. But let’s just be glad for that. I don’t need any more pressure right now.” Bishop returned to reading the case notes on the computer.
Hackett flipped through the papers in front of him, no longer sure what to do. But it was just a moment later when Bishop snapped his fingers. “Hand me that picture from Cahill’s crime scene. The one of him on the bed.” Hackett complied and Bishop smiled as he turned the screen toward him and held up Cahill’s picture beside it.
“What do you see?”
“A lotta blood.”
“Come on—look!”
“What?”
“It’s the same bed—the wrought-iron frame. Look at that.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You don’t think that’s a bit morbid? Your parents are killed in their bed and you take the bed frame?”
“I don’t know. It’s only furniture. I took whatever hand-me-downs I could grab when I moved out.”
“What was Grace’s alibi for her parents’ murder?” Bishop said, taking a moment to scroll back through the file and answer his own question. “At a friend’s house for a sleepover. Parents of the girl and the friend vouched for her.”
“And what was Lisa’s?” Hackett asked.
“Also cleared. Lived an hour away at the time. Now, what was the friend’s name where Grace stayed that night?” Bishop asked himself.
Hackett waited while Bishop found his own answer on the screen. “Vicki Beckerman,” he said with a grin. Bishop looked up from the screen at his partner. “And what do you want to bet that Vicki Beckerman’s married name is Vicki Flynn?”
Hackett didn’t respond, though he wasn’t sure it was necessary. Maybe Vicki Flynn was Grace’s alibi three years ago, but so what? Bishop’s phone rang and Hackett stood to get some coffee and clear his head.
When he returned to his desk, Bishop was hanging up the phone. “Well, that was interesting.”
“What’s that?”
“Grace has secured an attorney. He just called to tell me that if we have any further questions for Grace, we should contact him. I told you she was holding something back yesterday. She knows she’s in trouble. She left our station and got a lawyer.”
Hackett didn’t say a word. He needed to figure out a way to deal with these other leads, and quickly. Bishop continued. “I just called my buddy up in Muskegon too.”
“What for?”
“West Shoreline Correctional is there. That’s a couple hours away, but my buddy owes me a favor.” Bishop smirked. “He’s gonna pop over there today and talk to Stanford Jones.”
Great.
“Kids kill their parents, Hackett. Happens all the time.”
<
br /> TWENTY-ONE
VICKI FLYNN WAS HOLDING HER TODDLER in her arms when she answered the doorbell. Her facial expression dropped when she saw Hackett and Bishop at her door again.
“Officers, did you forget something? Please don’t tell me you’re here for Wes. He couldn’t have done this. I swear.”
“May we come in? We need to talk about something else.”
She took them back to the kitchen. “Wes just left for work.”
They all sat around the kitchen table, and Mrs. Flynn put her daughter on the floor. The toddler quickly scampered away. “Have you found out something new about Mike’s death?”
“We want to talk to you about Grace’s parents, actually.”
“Oh,” she said, visibly relieved.
“We noticed from the files that Grace was with you on the night of her parents’ murder,” Bishop said.
“That’s right. I was telling Grace about that yesterday. It’s so crazy that she doesn’t remember anything.”
“You saw Grace yesterday?”
“Sure. I’ve been so worried about her.”
“Well, we realize it’s been several years now, but would you mind walking us through what you and Grace did that evening?”
“Why? You don’t think that the cases are related, do you?” Before either officer could answer, she continued. “That would be so crazy. But they caught the guy. What—”
Bishop cut her off. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Just tell us whatever you can remember about the night Grace slept over.”
“Like I said to Grace, I remember that night like it was yesterday. Thanks to my two-year-old, constant reminder.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sammy. We conceived her that night.” She smiled.
Hackett looked up from his notes. “But Grace was sleeping over at your house, right?”
“That’s right, but we hooked up with our boyfriends.”
“I don’t recall noticing that from the file,” Bishop said.
“No. We were only seventeen. They were older. We both, well, I—I would have been in so much trouble with my parents. I figured no one needed to know—it didn’t matter. It only mattered that we were together.”
“Can you tell us exactly what you all did that night?”
She told them the specifics.
“And when you and Wesley reunited with Grace and Cahill after splitting up for a bit on the beach, how much later was it? Did you go back to the bonfire?” Bishop asked.
“I really don’t remember, but I don’t think we went to the bonfire. No, the fire was out. Grace and Mike weren’t around, so we walked up the stairs and found them in the car already.”
“Was either of them acting strange? Anything out of the ordinary?”
Hackett knew what Bishop was doing and held his breath while she responded.
“No,” she said, like it was the strangest thing to ask.
“And when the police came to your house, do you recall what time that was?”
“It was in the morning. I remember the doorbell rang. It kind of woke us up and my parents got the door. Then they called us both down.”
“And when they told you what had happened to Grace’s parents, how did Grace react?”
“Well, obviously, she was in shock.”
“Did she cry? Did she faint? How did she react?” Bishop asked.
“She was frozen. Like I said, she was in shock. I don’t think she knew how to react.”
“And did the officers ask you if she had been at your house all night?”
“Yeah, I mean, not immediately. We all went to the couch to sit. My mom and I were both holding on to Grace; we kind of walked her over to the couch. It was awful.”
“But they also wanted to confirm her whereabouts?”
“Well, it was obvious. I mean, they probably said something like, ‘And Grace was here all night?’ and I’m sure we all said, ‘Yeah.’ ”
Hackett knew what Bishop would think of that—the investigators hadn’t focused on Grace at all.
As they drove along the gravel road, the sound of rocks popping under their tires filled the car. They turned onto a paved street and made their way back toward Red Arrow Highway and the station. The air felt like it was getting thicker by the minute, as if the silence building between them was becoming a wall.
“Cherry Beach is about twenty or thirty minutes from the Abbotts’ place,” Bishop finally said.
“You think she and Cahill killed her parents.”
“I don’t know. But she was thinking about running off with him. The parents didn’t approve and her alibi wasn’t actually with her all night. I tell you what, if they did kill her parents, then Cahill’d have something to hang over her if she ever wanted to leave him. I want to know more about this family and—”
“I’m on it,” Hackett said. Be objective; solve the case. Fuck his gut. He needed to stop thinking about her and just follow the facts. If he did, it would all be okay.
Bishop’s cell rang while they were driving back to the station. The caller was obviously one of his kids. One of the younger ones, from the sound of it. It was strange to hear this side of Bishop. The gruff tone was gone. He was trying to soothe the sadness of his child. “Love you, baby,” he said before hanging up. Hackett looked away, unsure of the protocol of being privy to this private conversation, but Bishop didn’t seem to mind. “I’m gonna head home for lunch today.”
“Sure,” Hackett said.
“I just think . . .” His voice trailed off then, and his thoughts appeared to be miles away.
Back at the station, Bishop dropped Hackett in the lot and told him to read through the parents’ murder file more closely, focusing on the girls. “And get me everything you can on the Abbott family. Any news, police reports, trouble in school, anything.”
Hackett grabbed a soda and pulled up the scanned notes from the Abbott file, as well as the interview videos. He clicked on Grace’s first. She looked a bit younger than she did now as she sat quietly in her T-shirt and sweatpants, answering the officers’ questions. When they were through, she’d asked for tissues, and then, without even looking up from the table, she quietly asked where her sister had been. The officer’s first response had been to comfort her, to assure her that her sister was okay, that she hadn’t been there either. But Grace shook her head. “No. There was an argument.” She explained that Lisa had fought with her parents because they had cut her off financially.
Hackett closed the file and clicked on Lisa’s interview. She’d admitted to the argument with their parents, but her parents had been right, she’d said, and she’d said as much in an e-mail she sent to them two days before the murder. Their relationship was fine, she assured the officer. She was living up in Benton Harbor with some guy named Bichon, who confirmed that she had been home with him all night.
Next, he scoured the public records. He looked for arrest records, business licenses, property records, county clerk records, media coverage, anything that search engines or internal records could find.
When Bishop came back to the office an hour later, he went to his desk without acknowledging Hackett and sat there, staring at a family photo on his desk. It looked like it was from a Christmas card, one of those staged shots of the whole clan, all dressed in coordinating colors and posing in front of the fireplace. Bishop’s wife sat by his side, the older kids knelt beside the parents like bookends, and the younger two were down front. Their smiles looked natural, a moment of genuine happiness captured for posterity, that rare perfect family photo. Hackett had noticed it before mostly because it brought to mind his own dysfunctional family and their dozens of failed attempts at doing something similar.
“You okay?” he asked.
Bishop snapped out of the trance and gave him a weak grin. “Oh sure, sure. Just not an easy day
for the Bishops.” He leaned back in his chair then. “I tell ya, kid, it’s pretty brutal to see your wife fall apart. And I’ve been watching that for a few weeks now. But she’s strong. I know she’ll pull herself together. And she can rationalize the situation, her mom’s age, the pain of sickness. She knows she’s in a better place. But my kids are so heartbroken. They’re just genuinely devastated. And I can’t fix it for them. And there’s just nothing worse than that helplessness.” He wiped his eyes. “It sucks.” Hackett nodded, not because he’d known the same loss, but he knew nonetheless. And the image would probably always haunt him: Olivia peeling Donny’s arms off of Hackett’s neck as the baby wailed, not wanting to let go. “So what’d you find out for me?” Bishop asked, getting them both back to business.
Hackett briefed him on the girls’ interviews and alibis and moved on to his more interesting finds. “The parents don’t look like they were in trouble with the law. The mother was some sort of painter, had a few pictures hanging at a local coffee shop. But otherwise, she stayed at home with the kids. Found a LinkedIn profile on the father—some sort of tech guy. But this was interesting. Back in 1998, the Abbotts lost a child.”
“What do you mean ‘lost’? Like a missing person’s report? A social services situation?”
“No, I mean dead. A kid, five years old, Mary.”
“And were the parents suspected? Any charges filed against them?”
“Initially the mother was questioned pretty seriously. I guess she didn’t call for help right away. She couldn’t say how long the girl had been missing. She’d said the kids had been playing, and she’d been painting for hours. The mother admitted to bouts of depression. She was on some pretty serious meds at times. But the kid, Mary, was found within a couple of hours in the neighbor’s field. Her neck was broken. The neighbor was charged with murder. He was a known violent drunk, and cops had been to his house dozens of times over the years for domestic-abuse stuff.”
“And how’d it turn out?”
“Sentenced to twenty-five years. Sent to Oaks Correctional. And guess what else?” He didn’t wait for a response. “The neighbor was Michael Cahill.”