Cause of Death

by Laura Dembowski

  “So you’re putting me on desk duty?”

  “Actually, we’re suspending you. You’ll be paid until you are either cleared and can come back to work or are charged.”

  By the way he’s looking at me, I can tell he thinks I’ll be charged. Maybe he even thinks I should be charged.

  I didn’t kill Tracy, but I can’t prove it. The husband or the boyfriend—the fiancé, in my case—is almost always the primary suspect. There’s no way anyone would suspect Margaret of having Tracy killed, but I’ll prove it if it’s the last thing I do.

  I get up to leave Sarge’s office—for the last time, most likely. He stops me.

  “One more thing,” he says.

  I turn to face him without saying anything. My mouth is dry, and I don’t feel like I have anything of value to say.

  “When I arrived on scene, some other officers showed me photos they’d found.” He pauses. “Of you and Beth Cambridge. Doing things you shouldn’t have been doing.”

  “And Margaret Moore found out,” I say frantically, accidentally spitting at Sarge. “That’s why she had Tracy killed. To torture me and frame me. Probably didn’t even know Tracy was blackmailing me.”

  I force myself to stop talking before I further incriminate myself.

  Now Sarge’ll be able to get a warrant, search my whole place, the computers, everything. They’ll find every single thing Tracy was holding over my head. There won’t be any saving me. Before long the whole force will be against me; we don’t like bad guys.

  I don’t stand a chance.

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Sarge asks. “Maybe I could have helped you.”

  “I didn’t think I needed help,” I say. Clearly I was wrong. “Can’t you help me now?”

  He looks at me with cold eyes. “I’ll do the best I can, but it might be too late. You’ve really gotten yourself into a mess this time.”

  Don’t I know it.

  I hand over my gun and badge. I sign some papers. I don’t know what they say. It’s not like it matters; I’m forced to sign them, whether I want to or not.

  Sarge extends his hand to shake mine, but I don’t feel like shaking hands with the man who just accused me of murder.

  “You son-of-a-bitch,” Kate says to me as soon as I approach our desks. I’m not allowed to take much, but I’d like the few personal things I keep on my desk. The photos and memorabilia I’ve collected over the years.

  “I didn’t ruin the case,” I say to her, “Beth doesn’t want this to come out, so it’ll all be fine.”

  “Everything comes out eventually,” she replies—directed at me more than the case, I’m sure.

  “Help me—please, Kate. Prove I’m innocent. I did some bad things, but I didn’t kill Tracy. You know that. You know that, Kate. I didn’t kill her.”

  “It looks really bad,” she says.

  I would have thought she’d be more on my side. I guess she needs some time to process her partner being accused of murder.

  Soon the whole city, uniformed and otherwise, will think I’m guilty. Their minds will be made up the instant this hits the news. This story will be all over the TV, the papers, the Internet. I’m about to become the talk of the town.

  Chapter 14

  Ryan

  I can’t believe how the officers left my house. Now I understand why people are pissed when we leave. They’ve tracked in dirt from the yard; shoe prints are everywhere. You’d think they would treat other people’s houses as they would want theirs to be treated. Apparently not. In the unlikely event that I ever get to work a case again, I’ll be far more careful.

  I walk into the kitchen, where they found Tracy’s body. There’s blood everywhere. On the cabinets. The counter. The floor. It’s seeped into spots, and I doubt I’ll be able to get it out. I look at the mess a moment too long. It makes me sick. I throw up right on the floor, not able to bring myself to walk through the blood to get to the sink or the trash can.

  People often hire professional companies to take care of messes like this. They make good money, rightfully so, ridding houses of blood, guts, and more. It seems like good punishment for me to clean this up. All the dirt and the blood. I mean, it’s all my fault, isn’t it?

  I got overly involved in Lana’s case when I could have just ruled it a suicide. I fucked Beth. I messed with Tracy. This tangled web is all my creation, so now I need to pay. Plus, considering the likelihood that I won’t be getting paid for much longer, I should try to save money. Even if I don’t get charged with murder, I will still lose my job for all of the other mistakes I made. Namely Beth.

  It’s fine. I couldn’t hold my head up in that station now anyway. I’m on the other side of the law.

  Since I’ve already put myself in this position, I don’t see any reason to cut things off with Beth at this point. Plus, I can’t be alone. In this house. With the ghost of Tracy haunting me. I don’t really believe in actual ghosts, but I don’t need to in order to feel her presence stalking me, the hatred filling the air.

  Part of me thinks Margaret did Tracy a favor. She wasn’t exactly the happy-go-lucky type. Sure, I loved her, but at some point, something changed, and suddenly, she was never happy. No matter what anyone did for her, no matter how much money she made or how many things she had, no matter how many seaside vacations we took, nothing made Tracy purely, genuinely happy. I’m not even sure she wanted to be happy. I ignored her wretched unhappiness all these years, but now that I have some distance, I can see it all clearly. She was a bitch who had me right where she wanted me. Not unlike Margaret Moore. Now, instead of suffering through the next forty or fifty years, Tracy has been put out of her misery. Maybe in heaven, or hell, she’ll change her ways.

  Merely thinking all these nasty things has made me antsy. My skin crawls with itches I can’t scratch. My hair is standing on end. Tracy is torturing me any way she can. Boo-hoo, I’ve offended Tracy, whom I suppose I have to keep pretending I still love when I confront those who will be mourning her.

  “Shit,” I say out loud. “I have to call her family.”

  I’m not concerned someone’s going to think I’m crazy for talking to myself, considering I’m alone. Besides, being called crazy isn’t the worst thing I’ve been called today.

  Beth’s been texting me; maybe she knows something is up. Well, she’s going to have to wait for a while. I can’t deal with her right now.

  Tracy’s parents are my top priority. Not by choice, but it’s not exactly like I can call Todd and Anna in a week and be like, “Oh, by the way, your daughter died.” Tracy might have turned out to be a terrible person, but I’m not, and I’m not about to become one now.

  I go into the study, which seems to be the only room in the house unscathed by the events of the morning. I shut the door—not sure why. It’s not like I need privacy from anyone. I find Todd’s number in my phone, the only number I have for her parents.

  We’ve never been best buds or anything, but her parents have always been nice enough to me. I have Todd’s number because we’ve gone to a couple of baseball games together, and he took me out on his fishing boat once, for some bonding time. Fishing ranks among my least favorite things to do, and going with him was a huge mistake. He must have thought so, too, since he never invited me again.

  I press the call button quickly, like pulling a Band-Aid off a wound. The phone rings. I don’t know if I’m hoping Todd picks up or that it will go to voice mail. Even if I hear that robotic voice, I have to ask him to call me back. There’s no way I’m going to tell him his daughter’s dead over a voice mail. I can’t even imagine that.

  He picks up. “Hey, Ryan! How are ya?”

  I wish he wouldn’t have sounded quite so excited to hear from me. It’s been a while since we’ve talked, and it’s like he’s rediscovered a long-lost best friend.

  “Actually, I’m
not doing that great,” I say.

  “What’s wrong? Anything I can help you with?”

  Todd’s a good guy. A really good guy. He’s worked hard his whole life to support his family; too bad I’m about to ruin the rest of it.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this, Todd,” I start to say, and then I stop myself. I think about how we make death notifications. We do it in person. I have to make a quick decision and it’s an impossible one. I don’t want to give him the wrong message by saying I need to come over or we need to meet, but I can’t exactly just tell him this over the phone.

  “What is it, son?” he asks.

  I hate that he calls me son. I am not his son. Right now, I hate even more the fact that he feels this bond with me; it’s going to make telling him Tracy’s dead that much harder. And then he’s going to find out that I’m a person of interest. The only person of interest.

  “Are you and Anna home? Can I come over?”

  “Anna’ll be home soon. She’s getting her nails done or something. You okay?”

  “Yes . . . no . . .” I’m searching for an explanation, but nothing’s coming to me. “I really need to talk to you in person.”

  “Come on over,” he says in a friendly, concerned tone. “Tracy coming too?”

  “No,” I yelp. “I’m on my way.”

  She’s not coming; that’s the truth. I only told him the truth.

  I get in the car, even though I shouldn’t really be driving. Physically and mentally, I’m a mess. People worry about driving under the influence of alcohol, but driving under the influence of powerful emotions is much more dangerous.

  Somewhere along the thirty-minute trip, mostly highway, I start crying. Not manly, repressed tears, but ugly-cry tears, as Tracy would have said, back in the days when we were actually in love. It’s not that I’m necessarily crying over Tracy’s death. Although we weren’t as close anymore, I am sad that she is gone. Now when I think of my future, it’s empty. A giant void of question marks waiting for answers that will not come to me right now, except that my future most likely involves prison, probably for the rest of my life. Not one of those nice minimum-security facilities, either. Instead, my time will most likely be served in some maximum-security prison where no one will ever come to visit me. A cop in prison. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

  The tears come because I’m scared about that future. I don’t want to be locked up. I know what prison is like; I know what it does to people. Even if they are innocent, by the time inmates are released—in the unlikely event it ever happens—they are changed people. And not for the better.

  The drive goes by quickly, my mind racing. I pull into Todd and Anna’s neighborhood, then into their driveway. I park the car, turn it off, and just sit there. The sun is bright and hot, beating down on the car. The moment the air stops blasting, I feel like I am going to suffocate. My death is imminent as long as I sit here without starting the car or rolling down the windows. I am at peace with that idea.

  Todd must have seen me pull in. He walks out the front door and over to my car. He tugs at the door, but it’s locked. I open the door. Todd looks at me funny. I realize it must be because I look like a product of the war I have been through today. Or because I was sitting in a stifling hot, locked car.

  “Are you okay, son?” he asks.

  “Not really, no,” I say.

  I am here now, and I need to tell him the whole story as soon as possible, so I fail to see the point in pretending like everything’s okay. It’s not, and no matter what words I say, Todd’s a smart guy; he’s already figured out that something is seriously wrong.

  “Come in,” he says.

  He walks a few steps ahead of me but turns back every couple of paces to make sure I’m following him, that I haven’t dropped dead on his broken-down brick-paver sidewalk.

  We reach the inside of the house and he leads me to a couch in the closest room. It’s the library. They don’t even use it. The room looks dusty, totally untouched. I’m not entirely sure why he wants us to sit in here. Just being in this room makes me more uncomfortable than I already was. I sag into the couch. I can barely focus on the conversation I have to have.

  “What’s going on, Ryan?” he asks.

  “Is Anna back yet?” I say, not really avoiding his question; I’d rather tell them together so they can console each other when I break this news. They still see Tracy as their little girl, the center of their world. Pictures of her and trophies she won are everywhere in their house. They talk to her all the time, and talk about her even more. Todd and Anna are just about the proudest parents I’ve ever met. Before this latest incident and personality change in Tracy, she was the all-American girl every woman wanted to be, and every guy wanted to be with. For some reason, she chose me. I wonder if she realized she’d made a mistake even before I cheated on her.

  “She’ll be home soon,” Todd answers me. “We don’t have to wait for her.”

  “I think we should,” I say.

  “What could be so important?” He’s impatient, which ordinarily would piss me off. In this moment, it just makes me sad. He’s trying to think of all the reasons I could want to talk to him and he’s not coming up with anything important enough to worry about. He’s not panicked. He’s not stressed. He’s not nervous to hear what I have to say because the last thing on his mind is that his daughter is dead.

  I sigh, not knowing what I should do. God knows how long Anna will be, and I clearly can’t hold Todd off much longer.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this,” I say.

  “Just spit it out, son.”

  “Tracy’s—”

  I pause when I hear the door open.

  “Helloooo,” Anna’s warm voice rings through the house.

  “In here,” Todd shouts.

  “Where?” she asks, trying to follow his voice. I can hear her kitten heels clicking on the floor. She always wears them, to match her rather sophisticated persona.

  “The library,” Todd yells back.

  Anna reaches the door. She doesn’t spot me at first, I can tell. She looks at Todd, wondering what the hell he’s doing in this room. Can’t blame her there. Todd looks to me, so Anna changes her gaze.

  “Hi, there. What are you doing here, Ryan? You two having some male bonding time?”

  “No, Ryan’s got something important to tell us.”

  “Oh.” Anna’s eyes light up like a Christmas tree. She thinks my news is good. “Are you thinking about asking Tracy that very important question, and you wanted our approval? Oh, that’s so sweet.” She turns to Todd. “Isn’t that just the sweetest thing, Todd?”

  Todd looks at her and nods. I’m wondering why Tracy didn’t tell her parents we were engaged. Not to mention the fact that I have to turn Anna’s good mood into one of despair. It’s not my fault she went and assumed what was happening here. What do they say about assuming?

  “Actually, that’s not why I’m here,” I say.

  Anna sits down and looks back and forth at me and Todd. “So, why are you here?”

  I look down at my hands. If I had a death-ray stare, I would have bored a hole right through them, into the floor, and the earth below us. But I am no superhero. According to most I’d be considered a pretty shitty guy.

  “I have some bad news,” I say, feeling sick. I’m afraid if I open my mouth again I’ll puke all over their pristine room. I swallow hard.

  “What is it?” Todd asks, impatient now.

  “You can tell us anything,” Anna adds.

  “Umm . . . well. This morning after I left for work, apparently someone broke into my house.”

  “Oh, no—do you need a place to stay? Or some money? We can help you out,” Anna says, jumping into mother mode instantly.

  “No, it’s not like that. They actually didn’t take anything.”


  “Oh,” Anna says, before looking at me, confused.

  “Tracy was there.”

  Todd and Anna remain silent. Anna grabs Todd’s hand and nestles it in hers. She strokes it with her thumb.

  “I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but Tracy was killed in the incident.”

  Anna leans over in a loud scream and starts sobbing, all her energy expressing her love for her daughter. Todd rubs her back, silent tears streaming down his face.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, as though it could possibly help the situation, even though I know it can’t.

  Anna and Todd are now hugging each other, each trying to console the other.

  After a few minutes, Todd is finally able to speak. “Do you have a suspect in custody?” he asks, jumping into business mode. He wants answers, and I don’t blame him. I want them too. Unfortunately, I don’t have any—at least, nothing substantial at this time.

  “No, we don’t, but I’m not on the case.”

  “Right, of course,” Todd replies. “You can’t work the case; you’re too close. Is your partner on it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Todd gives me a funny look.

  “How are you not sure? You need to get your partner on this case!”

  He’s growing angry, and I don’t like that. I felt bad having to tell them about Tracy’s death. I hope they make it out of this okay. I’m sure I’ll never see them again after this, so I won’t know, but I do hope things work out for them.

  “Shhh,” I see Anna chide Todd. “He’s upset too.”

  “Why don’t you know who’s working the case?” Todd presses me.

  It’s like he can tell there’s more to this story.

  “Because I’ve been suspended for the time being.”

  “And why is that?” Todd asks. Then, suddenly, realization dawns. “Did you fucking kill my daughter?”

  Before I can even think about an answer, he’s up and lunging at me.

  I try to make it to the door, but he grabs my throat and throws me up against a wall. I wonder if I should just let him kill me. That would put a quick end to all of this.