Behind The Veil: A Gina Harwood Novel

by Martin, Indi

  “Hello?”

  Marcus saw Matt stuff his microphone back in its stand and shoot a look of extreme irritation at Jake. Members were not to answer cell phones during practice. Marcus smiled for a moment at the tiny revolution.

  Jake sat down on the ground. Hard. His back was to the band, but it looked to Marcus like his legs just gave way. Marcus lifted the bass over his head and placed it carefully in the stand, then walked over and sat by Jake. Jake's face and hands were chalk-white, red knuckles grasping the phone. Sensing something was very wrong, Marcus reached down and took Jake's hand, not caring if the rest of the band had anything to say about it. They wouldn't say it to him, anyway.

  Jake didn't react. He seemed to be struggling for breath. “What? How?” he whispered. Marcus could hear a high-pitched voice on the phone.

  The hand holding the cell-phone dropped slowly to the ground, as if moving through jello (or, Marcus thought, as if incredibly high). It didn't snap shut, but no sound was emanating from it. Jake still hadn't responded to Marcus' hand. Marcus frowned. “Dude.” He grabbed hold of Jake's shoulder instead, shaking it a little. “What's wrong?”

  Jake didn't turn. His lips were white, too. Marcus thought his friend looked suddenly albino, like a pet mouse he'd kept as a kid.

  “Hey, man, c'mon, you're freaking me out here,” laughed Marcus nervously.

  “I have to go to the hospital,” whispered Jake, almost inaudible. Marcus' brow furrowed closer together. “It's Mom.”

  Marcus pulled his friend upright. “I'll drive.”

  ⇼ ⇼ ⇼ ⇼ ⇼

  “We're looking for Susan O'Malley,” asserted Marcus again. Jake floated behind him in his own bubble of consciousness, responding either very slowly to words spoken at him, or not at all. Whenever Marcus walked, as from the car to the ER entrance, or from ward to ward, he had to hold Jake by the finger and drag him along, like a balloon tied to a string. Jake was currently not available.

  The nurse looked exasperated. “I'm sorry, sir, we have no one here by that name.”

  “Oh, for Christ's...,” Marcus cut off, turning to Jake; he was still a foot behind his friend, wobbling slightly, still unresponsive. “Jake! Hey, man, where's your cell phone?”

  “Is your friend okay?” asked the nurse, peering around Marcus.

  “Yeah, he just got some bad news I'm trying to help him with,” explained Marcus, giving up communication and fishing around in his friend's pocket until he came up with the phone. There were four major hospitals in the city, and this was the closest one by far. If she wasn't here, whoever called Jake would know where she'd been taken. Jake had so far been little help.

  Marcus wheeled Jake around and led him back out to the street, out of the noise and bustle of the hospital's interior. Peering at the tiny cell phone in his giant hand, he cursed his thick fingers as he tried to navigate the menu. Finally he found “Recent Calls,” and pulled up “Incoming.” The name on the call was Harry. He pressed “Call.”

  After only one ring, a worried voice answered. “Hello? Jake? Where are you?” It was Harriet, Jake's sister.

  “Hey, Harry, it's Marcus,” he started slowly. “Um, you called Jake, and I'm trying to help him...”

  “What? Where is Jake? He should be here!”

  Marcus' eyes widened. The Harriet he knew (everyone called her “Harry”) was happy, boisterous, bubbly, but never the screechy, interrupting voice he heard now. “Where is here?” he asked.

  “Mercy, I told him, Mercy.”

  Marcus looked up at the sign. They were at Mercy Hospital. “Okay,” he said, alarmed. She was sobbing – huge, wracking things that distorted over the small speaker. “What room number?”

  “407.”

  He heard a click and the call ended. Marcus stared at the phone for a moment, before grabbing Jake's arm again and heading back through the doors, asking the direction to the elevators.

  Finding Room 407 was an easy matter, getting in was less easy. Two armed police officers sat on either side of the door, and blocked Marcus when he tried to enter. He could hear Harry's crying from inside.

  “What's your business here, friend?” asked the first cop, a burly, balding man with squinty eyes and a giant pot belly. Marcus immediately disliked him.

  “Smells a little... whew... you know?” joined the other, a square-jawed muscle-head with a greasy smile. He brought two pinched fingers up to his mouth and inhaled sharply. Marcus felt ice shoot down his spine.

  The door opened slightly and Harry saved him. “Marcus!” she nearly screamed, launching herself toward him and throwing her arms around his tall frame. Shocked both by the sudden movement and by her disheveled appearance, he stumbled backward, stepping squarely onto Jake's foot. Jake bellowed in pain. “Oh! Jake, thank God!” Harry said, a little quieter. She grabbed both their hands and started to lead them inside.

  “Wait, miss,” objected the balding officer. “Who are they, please?”

  She turned and glared at him with such heat that Marcus stumbled back into Jake again. Harry had never been one to mistrust or mistreat authority in any way. That job was left to Jake, and Marcus. “This is my brother and his best friend, now leave us alone.” With that, she slammed the hospital door in his face. Marcus' eyebrows were nearly into his hairline.

  “WHAT is going ON?” he gasped. He looked over to the bed and was surprised to see Peter O'Malley, not Susan. He had a nasty black eye and a great deal of swelling on his head and face. Marcus turned back to see Harry and Jake locked in a filial hug, weeping into each others' shoulder. Confused and suddenly exhausted, Marcus sank into the chair next to the bed, rolling his head back to the wall.

  “Susan's dead,” sounded a small voice.

  Marcus turned to meet Peter's good eye. The brown orb was glassy and lifeless, and a constant stream of tears seemed to leak from the corner. It blinked and turned away. Marcus was silent, watching the labored rise and fall of Peter's chest and the misshapen face twist up in agony as it tried to speak.

  “My wife is dead.”

  ⇼ ⇼ ⇼ ⇼ ⇼

  Three Hours Previously

  “Nothing.” Morgan chuffed into his hands and glared at Harwood. “And he looks awful. We need to let him go to the hospital.”

  She ground her jaw, which sent chills up his neck. He hated that sound; he swore she did it just to irritate him. He tried not to show it. “Yeah, I know. His face is swelling up pretty awful. We have what we need from him right now, we'll ask more questions later, see if his story stays solid.”

  Morgan looked at her with naked astonishment. “We don't have ANYTHING we need from him! He's lying!”

  Harwood tilted her head at him and sighed before she spoke. Morgan felt like he was four years old. “He's not lying about killing her. He didn't do it. He's lying about something else. And since he's not the killer, there's no point in us endangering our jobs by denying him medical attention when he so obviously needs it?” She lifted the last word like a question, before drawing her hand up to her temples and wincing as she rubbed them gingerly.

  He nodded mutely. She had a point.

  “Do you have any ibuprofen?” she asked, sounding exhausted.

  Morgan frowned and fished a small plastic bottle out of the briefcase by the desk. Absentmindedly, he popped it open and shook out two tiny white pills onto the table, sliding them over to her. She took them with a small nod, and walked out of the room, ostensibly to find some water. Morgan stared at the wall, lost in thought, and barely noticed her leaving.

  Many things about this case didn't sit right with him. Susan O'Malley dead in the kitchen with “MINE” carved into her belly was certainly top of the list; everything about that crime scene screamed a sociopathic killer. The lack of any physical evidence about the killer said it wasn't his first. But Peter, the husband, was the main suspect. He found the body, supposedly after returning home from a Bingo game; Morgan thought only grannies gathered for Bingo on Wednesday nights, but apparently some middle-a
ged businessmen thought it was grand fun, too. Instead of calling 911 immediately, or even cradling his dead wife's body in his arms, which Morgan might understand, Peter goes to the bathroom. There, he slips and falls, cracking several bones in his face and blacking his eye. Only then does he call 911.

  Forensics was working on blood and tissue matches in both the bathroom (which did show signs of exactly that sort of accident), and kitchen, and Morgan was loathe to let Peter go before the results came back. He knew the suspect was lying, just knew it. But he also trusted Harwood's uncanny senses; if she said he wasn't lying about killing her, then he wasn't. Of course, she had also admitted he was lying about something. Just something else.

  What else could be so important to lie about when your wife had just been brutally murdered?, he wondered. Maybe an affair? His wife's affair?

  Morgan sat on the stool in the cramped office with his hands between his legs. He saw Harwood walk back by the door, still rubbing her temples. “Guards,” he called after her. “Make sure...”

  “I know,” she answered in clipped tones, sounding agitated, her footfalls descending in volume as she walked away.

  Why did he go to the bathroom? Was there something in there that had to be hidden? Morgan Snyder picked up the phone on the small desk and dialed out; he ordered a thorough search of the plumbing in the bathroom, as well as an advanced search for any hidey-holes that could be used to store... well, anything. Drugs. Anything. When that was done, he sighed, and turned on the small television in front of him. He rewound the recording (wondering why on earth they still used VCR's in the 21st century) and hit “Play.”

  Peter O'Malley sat there, pathetically, a medium-height, average-looking man with smile-lines around his eyes. His face looked unaccustomed to the frown that was plastered across his face now; he looked absolutely miserable. Surely no small part of that misery was the purplish-bruise spreading slowly across his skull, giving way to a slow build-up of fluid under the skin. Within two hours, the right side of his face would be unrecognizable, but at the beginning of the video, it wasn't that bad yet. He had greyish hair, sort of a non-color hair, that was receding slightly. He was mildly plump, but not obese. He wore a bloody white suit-shirt with the top few buttons undone. The blood was from his crumpled nose, which had diminished to a trickle. He had just stopped sobbing, and was still hiccuping from the effort to breathe unimpeded; tears continued to flow down his ruddy cheeks, and wouldn't stop for the entire interview; even when he sounded mostly composed, the tears flowed. It was unnerving and sad, but it didn't make Morgan any less suspicious of the man.

  “Name,” requested Harwood, in an unforgiving tone. Morgan envied the strength in her voice; he always played 'good cop,' because he couldn't pull off the same trick she could – sounding like she could rip out your fingernails without batting an eyelash if it brought her closer to the Truth. That was ironic, since she was so sensitive she had to come up with little tricks to convince herself a dead body wasn't really a person before it met its end, after all.

  “Peter Vincent O'Malley.” The man's speech was slightly slurred from the broken nose, but he didn't complain outwardly of the pain that speaking surely caused him.

  “What was your relation to Susan O'Malley?” continued Harwood. Morgan sat silently in the corner, watching the proceedings, always ready to step in as 'good cop' if such shenanigans were needed. He noticed the only time Peter ever winced or showed any physical reaction was at the mention of her name. Otherwise, he was almost cold. Numb. Except for the tears.

  “She was my wife,” he said, quieter.

  “Why did you kill her?” Morgan looked up at Harwood in the interrogation room – it was unusual for her to immediately go in like that.

  Peter sighed. “I did not kill her. I could never hurt her.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she replied, sounding entirely unconvinced. However, Harwood had glanced up and met Morgan's eyes for a split second. She moved her head in an almost imperceptible shake; he didn't kill her, she was telling him. Harwood could read body language and eye movement like a book; she seemed to hear the thoughts beneath the words. That little gift always bothered Morgan on some level, it struck him as disturbing somehow; but he couldn't deny it came in awfully handy during interrogations, even if she was extra-bitchy from her migraines afterward. “Tell me what happened. Where were you at 5pm today?”

  “I did what I do every week. Wednesday afternoons, me and some friends play hookey from work and go play Bingo at the Bingo Hall.”

  “Who?” Harwood carefully wrote the names down and checked the spelling as he gave them. “We'll corroborate your story with each of them later.” She handed the list to Morgan. It listed all of the names, just like he said, but at the bottom was a scrawled note: “Something really weird here.” He guessed she didn't mean the oddity of businessmen playing Bingo. “Then what happened?”

  “I came home.” He seemed disinclined to continue. Harwood let out an exaggerated breath. Morgan stepped over and put what he hoped was a reassuring hand on Peter's shoulder.

  “It's okay, Peter. We just need to know,” he cooed. Harwood grimaced.

  “I...” Peter closed his eyes. “I came home. I knew something was wrong when I walked in the door...”

  “Was there something wrong with the door? The lock?” interrupted Harwood.

  “No, no,” he shook his head. “Nothing like that. It was locked, it was normal. But the smell of metal, of blood, when I opened it, it almost made me sick.” Morgan noted that his voice was oddly flat. “I kind of looked into the kitchen, but when I saw, just a glimpse of...” here he winced. “Susan...when I saw her, I...”

  “What? What did you do? Call 911? Call your kids?” Harwood sounded impatient. Morgan knew she wasn't, but she certainly knew how to play her part. She was one of the most patient people he had ever met, when she wanted to be.

  “No,” he said in a quiet voice, almost a whisper. The Morgan in the reviewing room had to lean in closer to hear it. “I went to the bathroom.”

  Silence followed. He was offering no further explanation. “Were you sick? Did you vomit?” asked Morgan in the kindest voice he could muster.

  Peter shook his head. His face was visibly swollen now, and his nose was a mess. Morgan wasn't sure he could see out of his right eye any longer with the flesh pressing in around it. “I... I tripped and fell. I hit my face against the corner of the sink, and then against the floor. I think I knocked myself out for a few minutes. Then, I got up, found the phone, and called 911.” He looked up at Morgan with his good eye, and it was a cold desperation that Morgan saw there. “That's when you lot came.”

  Harwood started from a different angle. “Is there anyone who might have done this? Anyone that comes to mind? Did Susan have any enemies?”

  “God, no. She was popular and sweet and friendly, and a wonderful wife. No one hated Susan.” His voice was a hoarse whisper now. “Everyone loved her. Especially me.”

  “Susan O'Malley had the word 'MINE' carved into her stomach in capital letters. Does that mean anything to you?” Both Harwood and Morgan leaned in to watch him closely.

  No reaction. “No.”

  Morgan Snyder hit pause on the tape. The sessions that followed, that's all they got. That was, as far as Peter O'Malley was letting on, the whole story. He was definitely lying about something, Morgan didn't need Harwood to tell him that. An important piece was missing, and Morgan felt that his prime suspect knew exactly what that piece was.

  ⇼ ⇼ ⇼ ⇼ ⇼

  Jake's head was spinning. Harry had finally let him go from her death grip (how long had it been since they'd shared a hug? he found himself wondering), and they had dragged chairs around his father's bed. Marcus was standing against the wall with Jack, Harry's husband. Everyone looked shell-shocked. All they knew was that his mom was dead somehow, his dad was lying here in the hospital, and two very unfriendly policemen were outside the door. Jake needed answers.

  “Dad...” he said
softly, reaching his arm out to prod the apparently sleeping man.

  “Don't, Jake, don't,” protested Harry beside him, who erupted into fresh tears. “It can wait. He looks awful.”

  Jake ignored her. “Dad,” he said, louder. He scooted forward and jiggled the arm closest to him. His father groaned and stirred, setting off a tinkle of sound as the various tubes in his arm and hand reacted to the movement. “Dad.”

  His father turned to face him and opened his good eye. “Hey, Jake,” he said softly, his voice raspy. “Harry, hey.” His eye slid to Jake's sister.

  “Dad, what happened?” Jake blinked tears away. “What the hell happened?”

  Marcus and Jack pushed themselves off the wall simultaneously. Marcus crouched a few feet away from the bed, and Jack kneeled next to his wife. His father noticed the movement and almost chuckled. Jake noticed that even in sleep, the salty water had continued flowing out of the reddened corners of his eyes. “Story time, huh?” Jake had never heard his Dad's voice sound so bitter and hardened. Peter was always an unassuming and content father, smiling and happy. Even when he had to 'discipline' the children, it really did seem to pain him just as much as it pained them. “Harriet, sweetheart, I don't know if you should hear all this.”

  She met his eyes briefly and then dropped them. “I want to know,” she said quietly. Jack squeezed her shoulders.

  He drew a quick breath in and let it out slowly. “Okay, then.” The story took only a few minutes, from his Bingo game, to entering the house, to seeing his wife, to the bathroom, to the interrogation. By the end of it, both Marcus and Jack were sitting fully on the floor, having lost the ability to stay crouched or kneeling; Harry held to Jack and sobbed afresh; Jake half-hid his face in his hands, peering through the spaces between two fingers, as if he could hide from his father's retelling.